Hagia Sophia
İstanbul · 24 archive photographs
Then · 1860-1880
Now · 2020
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Time Machine
This is how historical places you can visit today looked long ago. The Time Machine sets the oldest archive photograph of 10 places beside a present-day one. Their pages hold 181 archive photographs in all.
A photograph joins only when its date can be read and its name or Wikidata record matches the place exactly; a person checks every match. Drawings, prints and maps are left out. Every photograph carries its photographer, licence and a link to its archive record. The Timeline on each place's page shows these photographs in time order with the dates of construction, opening, designation and restoration. Dates come from: Wikidata; Ministry of Culture and Tourism, conservation council decision.
- Places with archive photographs
- 10
- Archive photographs
- 181
- Oldest photograph
- 1860-1880
Then and now
- Open the Timeline
Photo: Catsimpoolas, Nicholas · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons Photo: Antoloji · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Pergamon
İzmir · 1 archive photograph
Open the TimelineThen · 1879
Photo: ungenannte/r Fotograf/in · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Now · 2020
Photo: Antoloji · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Topkapı Palace
İstanbul · 52 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
Exterior view of a pavilion in the garden of the Imperial Topkapı Sarayı (palace)
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2020
Photo: Ayratayrat · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Yıldız Palace
İstanbul · 8 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
View of the Imperial Yıldız Sarayı (palace) and the Hamidiye Camii (mosque)
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2014
Photo: Dosseman · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Chora Mosque
İstanbul · 30 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
Exterior of the Kariye Camii (mosque)
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2024
Photo: Tadam · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons Anadolu Hisarı
İstanbul · 3 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
View of Anadolu Hisarı (fortress) from the sea
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2025
Photo: Denizmiş · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Rumelihisarı
İstanbul · 20 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
General view of the Bosporus and Rumeli Hisarı (fortress)
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2021
Photo: Jasin Arslan · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Fethiye Camii
İstanbul · 1 archive photograph
Open the TimelineThen · 1880-1893
Fethiye Camii (mosque) in Çarşamba
No known restrictions on publication · Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection Now · 2015
Photo: fusion-of-horizons · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons Harran
Şanlıurfa · 41 archive photographs
Open the TimelineThen · 1911
Citadel - general view of exterior. Beehive village in background.
Photo: Gertrude Bell · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University Now · 2022
Photo: Syildirimer · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Kadı Ali Çeşmesi
Kırklareli · 1 archive photograph
Open the TimelineThen · 1971
Photo: Machiel Kiel · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Now · 2024
Photo: Alicembasli · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Other places with a Timeline
These places have no archive photograph yet. The Timeline on their pages is made of dated events and recent photographs.
Where the photographs come from
Library of Congress, Abdul Hamid II Collection
The photograph albums Abdul Hamid II sent to the Library of Congress. They were taken in the 1880s and early 1890s by Istanbul studios such as Abdullah Frères and Sébah & Joaillier. The library records no known restrictions on their publication.
Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University
Photographs the British archaeologist and traveller Gertrude Bell took on her journeys through Anatolia and the Middle East in the early 1900s. Newcastle University keeps the archive.
Rijksmuseum
The photograph collection of the Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, which shares these digital copies as public domain.
Wikimedia Commons
Photographs that photographers and other archives uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with a recorded date and licence, old and present-day alike.