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5 unusual facts about Thomas Whittemore


Byzantine Institute of America

The Institute's founder is scholar and archaeologist, Thomas Whittemore.

Chora Church

In 1948, Thomas Whittemore and Paul A. Underwood, from the Byzantine Institute of America and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, sponsored a programme of restoration.

Thomas Whittemore

Thomas Whittemore (1871–1950) was a scholar, archaeologist and the founder of the Byzantine Institute of America.

In 1948, he and Paul A. Underwood, from the Byzantine Institute of America and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, sponsored a programme for restoration of the Chora Church in Istanbul.

His good personal relationship with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder and the first president of the Turkish Republic, enabled him to gain permission from the Turkish government to start the preservation of the Hagia Sophia mosaics in 1931.



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