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Posts Tagged ‘Istambul’

On starting the edits for The Jerusalem Puzzle

2012/06/28 2 comments

Yesterday I started the edits for The Jerusalem Puzzle.

I received two pages of notes from my editor at Harper Collins in London on Monday. Her comments included many compliments “powerful – expertly brought to life,” which are encouraging, but I won’t go on any more about, and suggestions for three extra scenes.

The first will be where Sean explains in detail why he wants to go to Jerusalem. The second will be where Henry’s involvement is expanded. The final one, at the end, will be where discussions take place about what happened in Jerusalem.

There are also notes from HC on each page of the manuscript, which need to be considered. This is all about 6 weeks work, editing maybe 2-3 hrs a day. After this we will have something truly interesting for you for January release.

Thank you for staying with me on this journey.

If you would like to follow a series of posts on fiction writing for the 21st century sign up for updates on the right.

There will be one post a month on the progress of The Jerusalem Puzzle towards launch next January and one post a month on writing craft issues. Here is the first post on writing:

http://lpobryan.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/get-your-writing-noticed-1-series-introduction/

You can preorder The Jerusalem Puzzle for UK readers here or for US/Aus/NZ here or Canada here.

The image below is of the Italian hardback edition of The Istanbul Puzzle, which is all over Italy at the moment. It was launched June 21st. If you know anyone in Italy please tell them it is available there. Thanks.

Italian edition The Istanbul Puzzle

Categories: On Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 1st Puzzle updated: What’s hidden beneath Hagia Sophia?

2011/12/27 20 comments

Hagia Sophia is the only building in the world to have served as a Catholic Cathedral and as the seat, the real focal point, of two religions, Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam, each of which has hundreds of millions of followers. Yet no guidebook shows any part of the building below ground level. Why?and

Hagia Sophia 1852, lithograph by Fossati, (Athens Gennadeios Library)

Real passages under Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, recently discovered.

Real passages under Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, recently discovered.

When Ataturk turned Hagia Sophia into a museum in 1934 and gave the powers of the Sunni Caliphate to the Turkish parliament, he enraged many in the Islamic world. Indeed, some are still trying to resurrect the Caliphate. That has been one of the main objectives of many Islamist extremists for the past eighty years. To understand why, just imagine what the reaction would have been if Mussolini had turned the Vatican into a museum and had then ordered the Pope to leave town.

The Hagia Sophia we see today is, despite the rebuilding work carried out after regular earthquakes, the building that was consecrated on the 27th December 537 by the Roman Emperor Justinian. It would be the greatest church in Christendom for a thousand years, until St Peter‘s in Rome was completed. And after the city was captured by the Ottomans, it was the greatest mosque in the world for nearly five hundred years.

There is no other building in the world with anything like that history. Hagia Sophia’s massive dome, its unprecedented proportions, were believed by many to have been the work of the divine. Its architecture influenced mosques and churches worldwide. Its grandeur was said to have led Russia to convert to Orthodox Christianity, not Catholicism. Relics such as fragments of the true cross, the undefiled lance, the most sacred tunic, and the God-bearing winding sheet (this was probably the Turn shroud) were only some of its treasures, until the city was ransacked by a Catholic army during the Fourth Crusade. That list was taken, by the way, from a military harangue delivered to Byzantine troops on behalf of Constantine VII (905 – 959).

Underground architectural features were well known at the time the first Hagia Sophia was designed. Both the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, constructed in 326-330, and Old St. Peter’s in Rome, both constructed around the same time, have extensive underground areas. Indeed, they are the most sacred parts of these buildings. Justinian’s Hagia Sophia was designed by Isidore of Miletus and mathematician Anthemius of Tralles. Both were well known for their interest in tunnels. There are also major underground structures, including the Basilica Cistern, in the vicinity. Did they simply forget to design underground levels for Hagia Sophia? Or were they hidden later for a reason?

Isn’t, I hear someone say, the tomb of the Doge of Venice located in Hagia Sophia? Yes, it is, but it wasn’t constructed until 1205, and it’s not impressive. It’s a slab in the floor of the upper gallery. But was that it’s original location?

Tomb of Dandolo, Doge of Venice, Hagia Sophia.

When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman armies in 1453, it would have been clear to the guardians of Hagia Sophia that the great church, the Vatican of the Christian Orthodox world, would be desecrated and probably turned into a great mosque if the city fell. Those in charge before the city walls were finally overrun, on Tuesday, 29 May 1453, had motivation and plenty of time to conceal many things, to sow many deceptions. Ottoman intentions had been clear for years.

So, why hasn’t there been a proper modern investigation, a geophysical survey using ground penetrating radar and the latest magnetometer equipment?

It is true that there has been some small-scale explorations under Hagia Sophia, tunnels and cisterns have been discovered, but isn’t it time for the whole area to be properly explored and documented? The publicity, and increase in tourists alone, would justify the costs. What is everyone afraid of? Hagia Sophia has been a museum for seventy five years. In The Istanbul Puzzle you will find one fictional answer to these questions.

The photographs you see below, and the one above, of the newly uncovered tunnels under Hagia Sophia, will become part of a documentary film. This documentary needs sponsors. You can follow this link for details and more images:  http://bit.ly/11QEb5x

If you are interested in finding out what really lies under Hagia Sopha, this project will help to promote a proper search of the whole area. I can’t wait to see what happens.

One of the entrances to the tunnels under Hagia Sophia.

One of the entrances to the tunnels under Hagia Sophia.

This is how deep that shaft goes.

This is how deep that shaft goes.

Click here to go to the 2nd Puzzle: The Lost Book of Magic.

Categories: Historical Puzzles Tags: , , , , ,

The 2nd Puzzle: The Lost Book of Magic

2011/12/26 2 comments
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  • The Secret Riches Visualization Tool
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    Most people know what The Secret is. They know about the power of positive thinking, repetition, self belief.
    and
    Few people know however that these ideas were once the key elements in ancient books of magic. Such books often also contained medical knowledge and practical personal advice. The success of such ideas gave these books a long life. They were much sought after and argued over.
    and
    And in some periods you could be burnt at the stake for possessing such books.
    and
    These days you can buy books of magic and positive thinking for a relatively low cost, and without much danger to your health. You can even go to seminars on how to see your success, or you can give away your money to people selling seals and hoodoo correspondence courses.
    and
    So what has any of this got to do with Istanbul?
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    At the time of the fall of Constantinople (since called Istanbul) in 1453 thousands of scholars fled to Italy. They went to Florence and to Milan and beyond. Among them were physicians, astronomers and mathematicians.
    and
    Marsilio Ficino, whose family fled from Constantinople to Italy, was one the most important figures in the Italian Renaissance.
    and
    He was involved, with Cosimo de’Medici, in trying to heal the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.a
    nd
    He was also a vegetarian, a priest, and at one point was lucky to escape with his life after being accused of magic before Pope Innocent VIII.and
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    Ficino’s father was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, who took the young man into his household and became the lifelong patron of Marsilio, who was made tutor to his grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici.
    and
    So where did Marsilio get his most important ideas?
    and
    Many of his thoughts are common sense now, such as advice to keep your body in good order, but some of his other ideas are more far reaching, even to this day.
    and
    Marsilio Ficino
    and
    In the Book of Destiny, Marsilio details the links between behavior and consequence. He talks about the list of things that hold sway over a man’s destiny,
    and
    He practised astrology too and believed in talismans and symbols. His most famous prediction was that the son of Lorenzo de’Medici would become Pope. He did.
    and
    His most famous achievement though was in the blending of the occult, the magical traditions of astrology, with the teaching of the Catholic church.
    and
    He wrote a treaty on the Immortality of the Soul, which after his death, became dogma of the Catholic and eventually the Protestant churches. This was a theoretical advancement on the Christian belief that we will all live on after death. His theory synthesized Christianity and Platonism, and created a foundation for the Renaissance.
    and
    He subscribed to the notion that there was hope for world renovation (best remembered in the word Renaissance – rebirth – itself), which would occur through art, science and technology.  He declared that religion’s basis had to be philosophy and believed that Plato should be read in churches. Ficino wrote that the human soul was both immortal and divine, made in the image of God.
    and
    This guy was responsible for the theory behind the Renaissance, and Christianity’s slow acceptance of the idea of human advancement, which underpins the positivism and dynamism of the West over the past five hundred years.
    and
    The Fall of Constantinople, 1453 
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    So what’s the puzzle here?
    and
    Marsilio’s family had moved from Constantinople before the fall and the ideas he was taught by his uncle, Manuel Chrysoloras, included specific magical concepts such as the power of self belief, the use of ritual repitition and the divinity of the soul.
    and
    The legendary Byzantine manuscript “The Seventh Book of Destiny”, quoted by Marsilio in a letter to his uncle, included detailed magical ideas about positivism and dynamism and the power of the mind and how you can attract good fortune.
    and
    The Seventh Book of Destiny was one of the books specifically targeted for burning during the Inquisition. Every known copy was destroyed for ever, except one, which we know about from a legend of the fall of Constantinople. The legend states that a copy was lost overboard in a metal trunk the night before Constantinople fell on Tuesday, 29 May 1453.
    and
    A Venetian galiot, a small galley, with a single mast and twenty fast rowers, had, so the legend goes, managed to reach a hidden gate in the sea wall near the Golden Horn at around midnight, despite a night bombardment of the sea walls by the Ottoman artillery, the most advanced in the world at that time.
    and
    Five close members of the last Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos’ entourage, including his sixteen year old illegitimate daughter, given the title of Princess only hours before, were taken on board. Each was allowed to bring only one very small chest.
    and
    One chest was lost into the sea as the passengers boarded, the chest containing Constantine XI’s personal illuminated copy of The Seventh Book of Destiny.
    and
    The position of that small sea gate was well known at the time. And Mehmed the Conqueror had that area of the Bosphorus dredged after the conquest in search of that lost trunk, which was observed going overboard, but the average depth of the water in that area, 160 feet, and the swift currents and eddies, some of which flow in different directions at different levels, must have taken the trunk some distance as it tumbled to the sea floor.
    and
    Present day archeological equipment, including the latest seismological underwater mud-penetrating metal detection equipment are likely to offer the surest route to the rediscovery of that legendary lost trunk. The book containing the lost Secrets of Byzantine magic will eventually be found.
    and
    But when, and what else does The Seventh Book of Destiny talk about?

    For more on all this buy The Istanbul Puzzle or go to the next puzzle of Istanbul here.
Categories: Historical Puzzles Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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