Today Mark and I went exploring in search of old Byzantium. I had always been under the false illusion that the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century AD. But that was only the Western half of the Empire; the remains of the Eastern half didn't fall until 1453. What we tend to call Byzantium was actually Christian East Rome. Ankara was lost to the Byzantines, or Eastern Romans, in the eleventh century. It may just be possible to see that the stones at the bottom of the building are different from the ones higher up. Mark likes to go inside these mosques to check their alignment with Mecca....he has an app!! Apparently this one was out of line but runs North to South, East to West as would be expected in a Christian church. Is it possible that this present day mosque was actually a Byzantine church? Ottoman Ankara is largely submerged under Ataturk's twentieth century reconstruction and Byzantine Ankara is submerged under Ottoman Ankara. I am looking forward to our next excursion in our pursuit of the lost city.
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