We got a chance to visit the ancient Byzantine basilica Aya Sofia, a.k.a. The Church of Holy Wisdom. We learned that it is actually the 3rd church to be built in its place, as the first two were either burned or torn down. Justinian II got to build this one in the 7th Century AD. It was captured by the Seljuk Turks in 1453 and almost immediately turned into a mosque. Mosques cannot have pictures of any kind, so they plastered over the mosaics in order to allow worship inside. Years later, the plaster started falling off, revealing the beautiful and ornate mosaics underneath. Ironically, the plaster which was meant to hide the evidence of the heritage of the building actually helped to preserve it. The reformer, President Attaturk, had the mosque "decommissioned" to be a secular museum in the 1920s, and it remains thus today.
Also, the design of the building, especially the domes, influenced mosques around the globe, and possibly Naboo from Star Wars I.
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