A dome built in under six years has outlasted empires

Emperor Justinian I had Hagia Sophia raised in Constantinople in just five years, finishing in 537 AD with what was then the largest dome on Earth. It has served as a cathedral, a mosque, a museum and a mosque again, surviving earthquakes, a partial dome collapse, and 1,500 years of empires rising and falling around it.

— Rowland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: A History — Architecture, Structure and Liturgy of Justinian's Great Church, 1988

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