Iznik / Nicea

On Friday, we took a group trip to the nearby historic town of Iznik.  Iznik has a archaeological museum located in and around a restored hamam.  Artifacts from prehistoric to Ottoman times found in the Iznik region are on display.  The town of Iznik is small today, but it has been inhabited for thousands of years and has played a variety of important roles in regional and world history.  During the Ottoman period, Iznik became famous for its ceramic production, especially its decorative hand-painted tiles.  Iznik tiles decorate many of the Ottoman mosques in Istanbul, including the famous Blue Mosque.  Example of Iznik pottery from its 16th century golden era were also on display at the museum.

Iznik ceramics from the 16th century

Ottoman graveyard next to the museum

Near the Archaeology Museum is the 14th century Green Mosque.  It is so named because of the tiles on the minaret, which appear more blue in real life than green.

We also explored a restored Ottoman Hamam whose original fountain is now home to goldfish.

When restoration work was being done on the haman, a Roman road was discovered.  Interestingly, it now sits around 15 below the current central road in Iznik.

The biggest attraction in Iznik is the now mostly ruined church of Hagia Sophia, first built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century when Iznik was called Nicaea. The church was built on the same plan as the larger, more famous Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.  The 7th and last of the early, united church ecumenical councils was held here in 787 AD.  The purpose of this council was to clarify church policies on the veneration and use of icons after a period of iconoclasm.  The present building dates from the 11th century but it retains the same plain and major features of the original building.  The building is mostly a ruin with a modern roof covering what remains.  During the Ottoman period, this church, like many other major churches, was used as a mosque.  The building had for decades been in a state of disrepair and disuse when in 2007 it was restored and open to visitors as a state run museum.  Within the past year it has been put to use as a mosque once again.  

Entrance with new sign

Inside with prayer space.

According to the New York Times, the decision to once again use the building as a mosque seems to be an independent initiative of a single local minister.  The vast majority of locals and Turkish tourists oppose the building's reversion into a mosque.  We visited Iznik on a Friday, the Muslim day of communal prayer.  Outside the Green Mosque, which was already filled to capacity, men lined up dozens of rows deep for the mid-day prayer.  The call to prayer echoed from the Ottoman minaret of what a sign now identifies as the Aya Sofya Mosque, however the area was nearly abandoned, with just a few men hanging around outside.  It certainly appears that locals prefer to pray at other mosques, even when they are overflowing, rather than use this church turned mosque turned ruin turned museum turned mosque.  My pious host family was shocked and surprised to hear that the church-museum was now a mosque.  Because hardly anyone actually uses it as a prayer space, the re-sanctification of the building made little real impact on our ability to visit and look around the building.  There is even a small benefit to the visitor.  Since the building is now a mosque rather than a church, there is no entrance fee.

Church apse with an early-Christian style stepped choir.

Ceiling with faint frescos

We finished the day relaxing next to the large lake whose banks nearly touch the old city walls.

I would definately like to return to Iznik in the future.  We had a bit of a whirl-wind tour, staying in the city about 5 hours.  There are lots of other Roman, Bzyantine and Ottoman Era ruins and buildings in the area that we didn't have a chance to visit, including a stadium and an obelisk.  The area around Iznik was a gorgeous Mediterranean stereotype: steep hills covered with olive and fruit trees and sleepy little villages.  The Iznik area produces a lot of olive oil and many studios in the city still produce traditional style painted pottery.  We got a brief tour of one such studio.  It had some beautiful pieces, but because of the time and labor intensive nature of the process, they were unfortunately prohibitively expensive.