BASILICA OF PANAGIA ACHIROPIÈTOS

Built around 460 AD, this three-aisled basilica (Ιερός Ναός Παναγίας Αχειροποιήτου/Ierós Naós Panagias Achiropoiïtou) is one of Thessaloniki's 15 Unesco World Heritage monuments. It took on its present name in the ^14th century, when it became home to an icon of the Virgin Mary, known as acheiropoiet ("not made by human hands"). Today, despite extensive damage over the centuries, this large basilica (51.9 x 30.8 m) is one of the best-preserved of the Paleobyzantine period: its rectangular plan echoes that of the Roman civil basilicas where justice was dispensed. Built of brick over former baths, it appears sunken below street level, the result of the pile of buildings destroyed around it in the course of history. Converted into a mosque throughout the Ottoman period, it was also affected by the great fire of 1917 and a strong earthquake in 1978. But after several restorations, the interior has regained some of its splendor. The centerpieces here are the columns surmounted by (new) capitals: two serpentine columns from Thessaly at the entrance, then a double colonnade in marble from the island of Marmara (now in Turkey). Admirable mosaics decorated with flowers and birds can still be seen at the top of these columns. And, on the ^8th column of the right-hand row, note this "graffiti" engraved by Sultan Murad II on the very day he took the city, March 14, 1430.