Descriptive Catalogues of Historical Earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East; Revisited - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 32

misinterpretation of Sanudo's statement that “[ ... ]il marati del Segnor vechio va

in rovina et la mazor parte de le mochee [ ]” (Sanudo 1496-1533). In fact marati

should be imarets , the ancillary buildings of the mosque and not minarets.
Many earthquakes are illustrated with contemporary wood-cuts and prints, al-
most all of them accompanied by caption written with some poetic licence.
The earthquake of 14 January 1546 in Palestine is considered by late sources
to be one of the most important earthquakes to have occurred in the district of
Jerusalem. It caused some small damage in the region but contemporary pamphlets
and wood-cuts prove that the reported damage was grossly exaggerated. Oldrich,
a Czech pilgrim, who was in Jerusalem very early in the summer of 1546 notices
that only the top part of the church of the Holy Sepulchre collapsed because it was
heavy, revetted with sheets of lead. A view of the Holy Sepulchre and its square,
was drawn by Oldrich's companion, Dominik de la Greche, and appended to his
topic (Fig. 5). The detailed panoramic view of Jerusalem, also drawn by de la
Greche, shows no other tall structures missing or the collapse of the dilapidated
city walls.
Even in more recent times damage and loss of life reported in private corre-
spondence, for instance after the destructive earthquake of 1894 from the region
between Adapazari and Lake Iznik in Turkey, is not mentioned in the Turkish press,

...

Fig. 5 Church of Resurrection. View of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its square seen from
the south side, drawn by Dominik de la Greche a few months after the earthquake of 1546. Notice
the missing top part of the bell tower