“Hagia Sophia: Istanbul’s Ancient Mystery”
Airing Feb. 25, 9 pm on PBS
GUEST BLOG—PBS NOVA ANCIENT WORLDS SERIES--Whether serving as Christian church, Islamic mosque,
or currently as a secular museum, Hagia Sophia and its soaring dome have
inspired reverence and awe.
For 800 years, it was the largest
enclosed building in the world—the Statue of Liberty can fit beneath its dome
with room to spare. How has it survived its location on one of the world's most
active seismic faults, which has inflicted a dozen devastating earthquakes
since it was built in 537?
As Istanbul braces for the
next big quake, a team of architects and engineers is urgently investigating
Hagia Sophia's seismic secrets. Follow engineers as they build a massive 8-ton
model of the building's core structure, place it on a motorized shake table,
and hit it with a series of simulated quakes, pushing it collapse—a fate that
the team is determined to avoid with the real building.
Source:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/building-wonders.html#hagia-sophia
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