Hey,

I've literally just made an account on Planet Minecraft to congratulate you for this awesome (in the sense of awe-inspiring too) build. It's by far the best rendition of the Hagia Sophia I have seen, especially because of the attention to detail and due to the fact that you also researched and included its adjacent buildings. Let me be 100% honest with you: the moment I loaded into the map, standing in the portico of the Augustaion looking at the magnificent floating dome of the Hagia Sophia, I admit I got emotional. I have been a Byzantinophile for about fifteen years or more by now. My interest in Byzantine studies led me to pursue a BA in History after I had completed my first college undergraduate course. If being a historian was financially viable in the context of my country, you can bet I would have become a proper Byzantinist myself.

That is all to say: the moment I stepped into your build it felt like I was actually stepping into Constantinople for the first time ever, fully immersed in a realized 3D environment. So, congratulations on your achievement and thank you for building and sharing this. I eagerly await to hear from you and your Project Byzantium in the future.

Now, I have a question: is it possible to open this file in Conquest Reforged? I'd like to play around with it in singleplayer and would love to use some Conquest blocks.

Secondly, recently I have also done in depth research into the topography of the Great Palace, because I, even despite the poor Minecrafter I am, would also like to try my hand at bringing the Great Palace back to life, starting from Boukoleon. I've consulted authors such as Bardill, Bolognesi, Featherstone, Westbrook etc. and my annotations document is ever expanding. It's such a complex set of details and mysteries. How could the Justinianos connect to the northern end of the Lausiakos and be directly accessible from the Tripeton at the same time? What was immediately to the west of the Tripeton itself (I wonder, could it have been the Mouchrotas/Manoeulites, despite being a much later addition to the complex?)? Were the kiosks of Theophilus north or south of the Kainourgios, uphill or attached to the Koiton by the sea wall? Where on Earth was the Phiale of the Blues, if it's a place that could both be seen from the terrace of the Chrysotriklinos and used to board barges? If the Pharos was adjacent to the Monumental Staircase, how do you fit the Phiale in there, considering the Pharos would take the space between the 16 m (or 11 m) terrace and the building attached to the loggia? What happened to the Phiale of the Greens anyway? What in Justinian's name was the Thermastra, and how did it fit between the Lausiakos and the Apsis? How could the lantern of the Pharos be seen from a window in Our Lady of the Pharos if the church was to the south of the Chrysotriklinos and the Pharos was by the entrance of the staircase? How could a person make their way directly from the Justinianos to the Theotokos without crossing the Chrysotriklinos or entering the imperial gallery? Was there perhaps a passage from the Tripeton going beneath the Kainourgios and opening to a possible atrium of the church serving as a closed courtyard of the Koiton? What was the exact course of Nikephoros II's wall, and what buildings were demolished to make way for it? Was the Kathisma included, after all? There are so many questions, and the problem isn't the dearth of answers. On the contrary, it's that there are too many answers for the same questions.

Anyway, if you would like to share and compare notes, I'd be very grateful. Hit me up on Discord, perhaps we can help each other.