10 Mysterious Mosaics
Mosaics have graced floors, walls, and ceilings for millennia. Made of thousands of interlocked tiles, their sturdy construction makes them nearly indestructible. Their design is simultaneously ancient and modern as the precursor to both impressionism and pixel-based graphics. Mosaics endure and so do their mysteries.
10 Hagia Sophia’s Hidden Angel
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An image of a six-winged angel has been revealed in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. The mosaic depicts a seraph, a member of the angelic choir, the highest order of angel hierarchy. For 160 years, the image was hidden under a metal mask and seven layers of paint. The image appears on pendetives (curving triangular surfaces) on the central dome and is believed to be 700 years old. The image remained hidden due to the ban on representational images in Islam.
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Mitla is an archaeological site associated with the Zapotec culture, located in the Oaxaca Valley in the present-day state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.
The Zapotec was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilisation emerging in the late 6th century BC, that originated in the Central Valleys of the Etla in the west, Ocotlán in the south and Mitla in the east. The Zapotec civilisation was centred on Oaxaca, San José Mogote, and Mitla, with the site of Monte Albán emerging as the civic-ceremonial centre.
At its peak, the Zapotec had a population of more than 500,000 inhabitants, having developed sophisticated construction techniques, a writing system, two calendar systems, and complex agricultural cultivation.