Fenari Isa Camii

In 1989-90, the Fenari Isa Camii (Theotokos tou Libos) was subjected to restoration that cleaned up much of the interior. The complex combines a tenth-century church, a 13th-century church, and an ambulatory with arcosolium graves -- all rather awkwardly adapted to function as a mosque. In the renovation, a gallery was inserted into the south ambulatory, cutting into the Late Byzantine masonry. Remnants of the mosaic setting bed that once decorated tombs have disappeared from the niches of the south naos. Hands folded across the breast were all that remained of the funeral portrait of Empress Theodora (+1303), the founder of the south church. The fragmentary inscription was apparently from the tomb of her daughter.