M. Choisy[416] has investigated the masons’ marks of S. Sophia; besides the ordinary signs, he makes out a system of numbering in the pavement slabs of the galleries.

Strzygowski[417] pursues the subject of Byzantine marks in general, much further. He points out the same signs on the columns of S. Vitale, of Pomposa, and of Parenzo, and in the cistern Bin-Bir-direk at Constantinople. From this we gather that not only “the columns of Ravenna, but also the similar architectural features of Constantinople, Salonica, Parenzo, in fact along the whole coast of the Mediterranean” were taken from the quarries of Proconnesus, and in the lettering on the different members we can recognise the working signs of the quarrymen or masons belonging to the guild, which sprang into existence there at the founding of New Rome, and which even as early as the end of the fourth century was exporting to the islands of the Ægean.

A few other inscriptions on the marble may be briefly noticed. On the inner border of the marble parapet of the north gallery is scratched, “Place of the most noble Patrician Lady Theodora,” ending with an abbreviation that may mean S. Sophia,[418] and again on a panel of the parapet of the north gallery at the west end is seen, “Timothy, keeper of the vessels.” Coteler in his Monumenta Ecclesiae Graecae finds mention of one Timothy, who was skeuophylax of the Great Church at the time of the Monothelite heresies about 622.[419]

On a column in the southern gynaeceum occurs the word Teodorus, but the fact that it is spelt with the Latin T and D proves it to have been written during the Western supremacy, 1204-1261.

In the south gallery is a slab forming a part of the paving; “marks in the face of which seem to suggest that a railing inclosed the space within which a sarcophagus used to stand, supported by pillars.” This is inscribed with the name of the blind Doge who led the Venetians against Constantinople in 1204, and died the following year, “Henricus Dandolo.”

NOTE

The following additional inscription from the mosaics is given in Clarke’s Travels (1812). It was taken, he says, in one place, “from the ceiling of the dome,” but in another place he seems to associate it with the eastward semidomes:—

ΟϹΚΑΙΧΡΥϹΟΥ
ΠΕΝΤΗΚΟΝΤΑ
ΤΑΛΑΝΤΑΘΕΟΚ
..Ν...ΟΙϹΝΕ
.ΕΚΕΙ.....

INDEX