Open up a world of Turkish inspiration with a Cornucopia digital subscription

Buy or gift a stand-alone digital subscription and get unlimited access to dozens of back issues for just £18.99 / $18.99 a year.

Please register at www.exacteditions.com/digital/cornucopia with your subscriber account number or contact subscriptions@cornucopia.net

Buy a digital subscription Go to the Digital Edition
Find it

İşhan


A domed basilica of fine ashlar construction, resplendent with relief sculpture, İşhan ranks a close second (to Ösk Vank) as the grandest of the churches of Turkey’s northeast. It is slightly later, completed c1032. The builders have delighted in variety (writes Robert Ousterhout, Gorgeous Georgian, Cornucopia 42). And I mean variety – I dare you to find anything symmetrical in the building or its decoration. The western nave, still walled off, once functioned as a mosque, while to the east the dome preserves a painted Exaltation of the Cross, dramatically set against a background of lapis lazuli. The church, village and phenomenal location was featured in Cornucopia’s first Black Sea issue, No 12.

ishan church turkey

Unfortunately, a visit to the church in 2016 found it sloppily rebuilt as part of a large-scale restoration project. Visitors are barred from entering, which leaves you wondering what exactly was done to the interior.


More Reading
Buy the latest issue
Or, browse the back issues here
Issue 66, December 2023 Turkey’s Centenary Issue
£ 15.00



If you like this, don't miss..
Cornucopia Digital Subscription

The Digital Edition

Cornucopia works in partnership with the digital publishing platform Exact Editions to offer individual and institutional subscribers unlimited access to a searchable archive of fascinating back issues and every newly published issue. The digital edition of Cornucopia is available cross-platform on web, iOS and Android and offers a comprehensive search function, allowing the title’s cultural content to be delved into at the touch of a button.

Digital Subscription: £18.99 / $18.99 (1 year)

Subscribe now