24 July 2009 | The image of a six-winged angel was recently uncovered at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, after more than 160 years of being hidden under layers of paint and metal.

The image, believed to be at least 700 years old, was uncovered during restoration work on the temple’s interior, national media reported today.

According to the Hürriyet newspaper, the last person to see the image of the celestial being, known as a seraph, is believed to have been the Swiss architect Gaspar Fossati, who led the church’s reconstruction under the reign of Sultan Abdulmajid (1839-1861).

Restorers recently removed the metal mask and six or seven layers of paint to uncover a mosaic believed to date to the ninth or fourteenth centuries. To their astonishment, the mosaic, located on the structure supporting the dome, was very well-preserved.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Sultan Abdulmajid commissioned Gaspar Fossati and his brother with the restoration of the Hagia Sophia. The two Swiss architects removed the paint and cement layers from the mosaics, thus uncovering the images and restored them. They were later covered in paint again and were, until recently, only known from the album made by Fossati.

Detailed studies of the mosaic’s exact age will be carried out by the Hagia Sophia’s High Academic Council and the Council for the Monuments, according to the publication.

The six-winged seraphim make their first Christian appearance in the Book of Revelation iv. 6-8, where they are forever in God's presence and praising Him constantly: “Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’”

These angels, said to be the caretakers of God's throne, belong to the highest order, or angelic choir, of the hierarchy of angels.

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