Traces of 5th-century Byzantine basilica were spotted under the water of turkey lake

Researchers first dive themselves in the ruins of an almost 1600-year old basilica that was recently discovered under Lake Tusnik during a video shooting from the air About 20 meters from the coast was discovered in the early Byzantine basilica, which has the remains of early Christian architecture.

The basilica has been inspected in depth by a professional diving team that has arrived in the northeastern Bursa province at the request of Bursa Municipality, Experts in the diving team made technical observations and measurements in the main body of the basilica.

In the area where the basilica was found the team, including the underwater Director of Photography Tahsin Ceylan, the underwater archaeologist Emre Savaş and worldwide underwater freediving record holder Śahika Ercüment moved to the area where the basilica was discovered.

The team, which was also accompanied by the archaeologists of the İznik Museum Directorate, remained underwater for some 2,5 hours.

The rite room and naves, which separate the structure into three main parts, were closely monitored and photographed.

Ercümen said that he was used to diving into deep waters in record attempts, the depth of the sunken basilica was shallow for him but deep in terms of history. He said,” It was a special event to dive into such a significant point, which is very important for Christianity.

A good scientific team was formed here and I joined it as a tubeless diver. Being underwater there brings to 1,600s. I believe that lots of history and water sports aficionados will come here to dive here in the coming days.”

Director of photography Ceylan said that they were working for the Culture and Tourism Ministry, adding that they could not say anything about the archaeological remains underwater and would give their data to the museum.

“Museums officials will evaluate the data that we obtained underwater. It will be the decision of the Culture and Tourism Ministry to launch this region as a protected site or use it for diving purposes. As an underwater diver, I hope it will contribute to diving tourism,” Ceyla said.

Turkey Underwater Sports Federation Diving Centers Committee member and diving trainer Kubilay Kılıç said that their work with archaeologists showed that it was a pretty big church with one-meter think walls.

He said that the structure should be taken under protection, adding, “It is said that it has a history of 1,600 years. It has a semicircle apse in the entrance, two naves, and cists. It is a very beautiful cultural heritage.”

Collapsed during an earthquake

Archaeologists, historians, and art historians, who are working on the church, estimate that the structure collapsed during an earthquake that occurred in the region in 740.

They found out that it was built in honor of St. Neophytos, who was killed aged 16 by Roman soldiers in 303 before the Edict of Milan, a proclamation that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the Roman Empire.

Uludağ University Head of Archaeology Department Professor Mustafa Şahin said that they had obtained significant information about the basilica. “The church was built in the 4th – 5th century because it has similarity to the plan of İznik’s Hagia Sophia Church,” he said.

Şahin said that they had encountered the name “St. Neophyts,” adding, “Neophytos is among the saints and devout Christians, who were martyred during the time of Roman emperors Dioclasien and Galerius when bans and punishments against Christians were common.

According to resources, he was a saint who was killed by Roman soldiers in 303, 10 years before the Edict of Milan that freed Christianity.”

Şahin said that the church was established with his name in the place where he was killed. He said that the date of the church construction was not precisely determined but it could have been built after 313.

The First Temple At Gobekli Tepe: Denisovan & Anunnaki Ancient Aliens Origins

Gobekli Tepe is the oldest known ancient site at the age of 12,000 and is undoubtedly the first known Temple in the world. At least 7,000 years before the Sumerian Empire, its presence raises questions as to how the history of civilization and the early days of the modern man can be traced.

Excavation at the site suggests that the findings present a challenge to both mainstream and alternative historical accounts such as the Ancient Astronaut Theory. The result is an enigma that points to the possibility that the Gobekli Tepe site as the World’s first temple was built either by the Native inhabitants, the Denisovans, or the Anunnaki Ancient Aliens.

The Gobekli Tepe Temple Complex Site

Located in Turkey, Gobekli Tepe is made up of a vast Stone Temple Complex. However, unlike Sumerian or Ancient Egyptian Temple Complexes, there is no writing from which the purpose of the Complex can be understood. Instead, we have a Stone alignment and a series of symbolic inscriptions that suggest the existence of an Astronomy based Religion.

The Gobleki Tepe Site’s alignment to the Cygnus constellation and as a means of marking the Precession of the Equinoxes in Ancient times has been proposed by Andrew Collins and Graham Hancock.

In addition, the Temple inscriptions bear a close resemblance to the symbols that would be used later in Sumerian, Indus Valley, Egyptian and Mesoamerican Temples. It would, therefore, appear that Gobleki Tepe is possibly the site at which the Astronomical Religions of the Ancient world began.

Gobleki Tepe is also credited with being the source of the agricultural knowledge that was later transmitted to these later Ancient Civilizations.

Whilst the Astronomical alignments and Religious symbols at Gobleki Tepe are fairly clear, the identity of the Architects remains a mystery.

The Unknown Architects Of Gobekli Tepe

Without a doubt, the Architects of Gobleki Tepe were of superior intelligence and culture. According to Andrew Collins and Graham Hancock, the Architects were possibly the Denisovans, a now extinct Giant Humanoid hybrid species of superior size and intelligence.

In this view, the builders of Gobleki Tepe may have been the survivors of the great deluge, who established Gobleki Tepe in order to preserve and transmit pre-flood knowledge and culture.

Sitchin’s Ancient Astronaut Theory would also suggest that Gobekli Tepe was a site that was established by the Anunnaki Ancient Aliens after the flood as a means of preserving the pre-flood knowledge.

It has also been argued that the site is the work of local Native Tribes who built the site in Ancient times together with the NAZCA lines using stone tools.

The identity of the Architects of Gobleki Tepe remains an enigma, and it is from its influence on later cultures that perhaps we may obtain some idea as to who is responsible for erecting the Temple Complex.

The Influence Of Gobekli Tepe

Gobleki Tepe’s influence is most evident in the later Civilizations of Sumeria, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Mesoamerica.

In particular, the symbols and astronomical alignments were first seen at Gobleki Tepe are apparent in these same later Civilizations, forming the foundation of these Civilizations by introducing concepts like Time, Temple Construction, and Religious worship of the Gods.

It would seem the Gobleki Tepe provided a kind of ancient template upon which later Civilizations were built. The references to the Ancient Gods of Sumer, Egypt, India, and Mesoamerica may in-fact be references to the Denovisan founders of the Gobleki Tepe complex who spread the knowledge of Civilization to these regions.

As such, the Ancient Gods in these various regions may in-fact be Giant Hybrid Denovisans rather than Ancient Astronauts as suggested by Zechariah Sitchin. Its therefore possible that the Ancient Gods may not have descended from the Heavens, but were regarded as having done so by the peoples they initiated into the arts of Civilization.

The earliest depictions of the Architects of Gobleki Tepe may possibly be of the Serpent figures of the Ubaid Culture which may be seen as portrayals of Denivosan Giants rather than Alien beings.

Gobleki Tepe culture may have therefore spread and established itself in the Ubaid Region first, then onto Sumer, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Mesoamerica.

Conclusion

The Giant skeletons that have been unearthed throughout the world and remain unexplained by mainstream Archaeology may belong to the Architects of Gobleki Tepe. A Race of Denovisan Hybrid Giants who initiated all subsequent Cultures into Civilization.

In this sense, Gobekli Tepe may be regarded as some kind of learning center or school for the initiation of early mankind into Civilization after the great deluge. Excavation of the Gobekli Tepe site still continues, and perhaps more revelations will provide clarity as to its purpose, origins, Architects, and influence on later Civilizations.

Nevertheless, at this point, what has been discovered so far brings into question both mainstream history and alternative arguments like Sitchin’s Ancient Astronaut Theory especially if the Denovisan hypothesis is considered.

Nearly 40 Byzantine Shipwrecks Were Recently Unearthed in Turkey

Over the past ten years, archeologists in Turkey have been chipping away at a treasure trove of Byzantine shipwrecks. As BBC reports, so far, they’ve uncovered 37 ships at a dig site in Istanbul. The site, Yenikapi, was once a port in bustling Constantinople, and the remnants of the ships found their date from the fifth to 11th century.

Archaeological excavations in Turkey that began in 2004 have yielded a unique historical treasure — 37 shipwrecks from the Byzantine Empire, eight of which are now described in a new report. [8 Byzantine Shipwreck Photos]

The shipwrecks were discovered at a site called Yenikapi, in Istanbul, in what was a port of the ancient city, then called Constantinople. The ships date back to the fifth to 11th centuries, and are in exceptionally good condition, archaeologists say.

“Never before has such a large number and types of well-preserved vessels been found at a single location,” said study author Cemal Pulak, of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.

The eight shipwrecks highlighted in the new report, which date from the seventh to 10th centuries, show that the shipbuilders at the time were using a more complex process than previously thought, according to the researchers. 

Each of the ships the researchers examined in the report incorporated elements characteristic of two shipbuilding methods. In one method, the shell of a ship was built first, and in the other, the ship’s skeleton was constructed first, and then the planks were attached.

The researchers’ analysis showed that a transition from a shell-first to a skeleton-first approach was already well underway by the seventh century.

“It is through meticulous and time-consuming detective work that we slowly begin to understand how these ships were built, modified, overhauled, and used,” Pulak told BBC.

“By such means, we try to understand the minds of the shipbuilders and their design and conceptualization processes, in order to better comprehend the history of science and engineering.”

Of the eight ships that the researchers examined for the report, six were classified as “round ships,” which means that they were propelled primarily or entirely by sail.

The length of the round ships ranged from 26 to 48 feet (8 to 14.7 meters), and they were between 8 and 16 feet (2.5 and 5 m) wide.

The other two ships the researchers examined were galleys — long, oared ships, about 100 feet (30 m) long, and 13 feet (4 m) wide. Among all of the 37 shipwrecks discovered at Yenikapi, there were a total of six Byzantine galleys, “notably the first shipwrecks of this type discovered from the Byzantine period,” the researchers wrote in their report.

Previously, Byzantine galleys were known only from books and artwork dating to the time period, and such sources tend to be difficult to interpret. Therefore the well-preserved remains of these vessels at Yenikapi play a crucial role in archaeologists’ study of Byzantine ships, the researchers said.

Until recently, much of the information about Byzantine ships had come from the several medium-size seagoing ships that had been excavated in the Mediterranean, Pulak said.

“Yenikapi has yielded a wide array of small rowboats, fishing boats, utility vessels, and even naval ships, all directly from Constantinople itself, the capital of the Byzantine Empire,” he added.

A large museum in Istanbul is being planned to exhibit many of the wrecks, Pulak said. But it could take several years to restore the timbers of each ship’s hull, he said.

1,000-Year-Old  Bible Found in Turkey Shows Images of Jesus

The discovery was made in the central Turkish town of Tokat by officials carrying out an operation to stop priceless artifacts from being smuggled out of the country.

The Turkish Police uncovered a valuable collection of jewellery, 53 ancient coins as well as two rings and two arrowheads.

It is not known where the Bible originates from, and its cover was damaged, but, inside, were pictures made of gold leaves said to show Jesus Christ, Mary and across, as well as text written in the old Assyrian language.

Turkish news organization Anadolu Agency shared a video online of the book which was later revealed by the YouTube channel “Let Me Know” in a 2020 mini-documentary.

The series explained: “The authorities swooped in after being tipped off about a trio of suspected criminals trying to offload their stolen goods.

“They uncovered jewellery and over 50 historic coins of varying shapes and sizes during the operations.

“But one item was of more historic value – a Bible that could be as much as 1,000 years old, and, while the cover of the book had some damage, many of the remaining 50-odd pages are in pretty good condition.

The authorities swooped in after being tipped off about a trio of suspected criminals

Let Me Know

“Inside, many of the pages reveal beautiful, faded imagery, religious symbols and pictures are visible – many made with delicate sheets of gold.

“The book contains one clear image of a cross, another illustration appears to be a mother – perhaps Mary – and other images depict Jesus Christ and other figures from Christianity.”

Tokat has emerged in recent years as a centre of smuggling activities in rare artefacts. This reputation was cemented in 2015 when “Orphan Man, Standing,” an authentic oil painting by Vincent van Gogh, was found in the boot of a vehicle owned by a suspected artefact smuggler.

This led to authorities implementing stricter checks within Tokat and an undercover operation to pin-down sellers.

The documentary added: “Significantly, in early 2015, anti-smuggling police discovered an old painting, completed of oils during a vehicle search of the city.

“But this wasn’t just any old oil picture, in fact, the piece was believed to be the work of a globally-respected master artist – Vincent van Gogh.

“The painting was deemed to be the real thing and later that year police uncovered even more important artefacts in another undercover sting.

“They successfully recovered the antiquities after a number of actioned designed to capture these suspected smugglers.”

Theologians hoped the Bible would offer valuable insights into the way Christianity has developed in the past century, but there has been no new research shared since the find.

A 1500 Year Old Bible Found And No One Is Interested?

Few subjects are as sensitive as religion. This highly controversial ancient Bible is believed to be between 1,500 to 2,000-year-old. It is written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus. If the ancient book is genuine, it would have serious consequences for Christianity and all its followers.

Most of us are familiar with the Bible, whether we have read it or not. It is considered one of the oldest and perhaps most revered books ever compiled or written.

The Bible is basically a compilation of text that religions such as the Christian faith are based on. Over the years though the bible has met with much scrutiny.

There have been many different interpretations of this book. Some actually feel that the book is based on some truths and some fabricated stuff, basically, fables to place the fear of God into people.

However, anyone may actually feel about the Bible and the effect it may have on their own lives there is no denying that this book has stood the test of time. But how much time, and has the stories that are compiled in the Bible been properly interpreted over the years.

In short, have we ever actually seen an ancient Bible compiled of these texts that can prove just what was written? Well, that would depend on again how you may actually interpret the situation.

Turns out there is a very ancient Bible in existence that could date back 1500 years which resides in a museum in Turkey.

Within this book are some historical texts that seem to have been lost along the way, this includes a gospel from Barnabas, who had been known to be the man who was spared when Jesus was crucified.

But according to those who have read this text Jesus rose to Heaven before suffering on the cross and Judas the disciple who betrayed him had been crucified instead. This is just one of the many passages that dispute the one that has become well-known to the public.

So, is this Bible the actual texts were written, and if so what does this do to the broad belief many have? Well, the Vatican has made a request of the Turkish Government to see the ancient Bible study it for themselves.

As for the rest of the public well it can be seen in the museum where it sits in Turkey. To obtain any copy of the pages to study them someone has to pay almost a couple million dollars.

The question though looms with such an old text disputing what has become fact, and the basis for much religion will this text be widely received or kept closed up with only a few reading it? Well, perhaps the way to look at it is as any other bible it should be met with scrutiny, a bible is a book none of us were there thousands of years ago to know what text is true and which aren’t.

New Evidence Of Ancient Child Sacrifice Found From Bronze Age Mesopotamia

About 5,000 years ago, the Mesopotamians buried two 12-year-olds — a boy and a girl — and surrounded their slender bodies with hundreds of bronze spearheads and what appears to be eight human sacrifices, a new study finds.

The eight human sacrifices were positioned just outside the tomb, located at the site of Basur Höyük in southeastern Turkey, the researchers said. The team determined the age of six of the human sacrifices and found that the victims ranged in age from 11 to 20 years old.

These two 12-year-olds, along with the eight human sacrifices, “had been deposited in a single event, and furnished with an unprecedented number of high-status grave goods for the period and the region,” the researchers wrote in the journal Antiquity.

The mysterious tomb was discovered in 2014, said the study’s two researchers, Brenna Hassett, a post-doctoral researcher of archaeology at the Natural History Museum in London; and Haluk Sağlamtimur, an archaeology professor at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey.

The remains of an adult were also found beside the two children, but that body could have come from an earlier burial that got mixed in with the two 12-year-olds, Hassett told Newsweek.

And while the evidence isn’t 100 percent clear, scientists are fairly certain that the eight people were sacrificed.

“While we only have evidence for violent trauma on two of the skeletons, it’s important to remember that violent death doesn’t always leave a mark on the skeleton,” Hassett said. “As a grim example, stab wounds are normally aimed at the soft parts of the body, which do not preserve.”

She added that “from the careful dressing and positioning of the bodies outside the door to the main chamber, it seems all eight would have been retainer sacrifices.” The term ‘retainer sacrifice’ refers to people who were sacrificed so that they can accompany or serve others to the afterlife.

The human sacrifices were buried with textiles, beads and ceramics.

Mysterious sacrifices

The discovery leaves archaeologists with a series of mysteries. Who were the two 12-year-olds who seem to be the focus of the burial? Were they also sacrificed? What’s more, why was human sacrifice carried out at all at this site?

“Unfortunately, preservation wasn’t great inside the chamber, so we don’t have any evidence that the [two 12-year-old] children were sacrificed,” Hassett said. But because the two 12-year-olds received such an elaborate burial, it appears that they must have “held an important biosocial status,” Hassett and Sağlamtimur wrote in the study.

Archaeologists know that human sacrifices also occurred at other sites in Mesopotamia, including a nearby site called Arslantepe that also dates back to roughly 5,000 years ago.

“One thought is that what we are witnessing at Basur Höyük is part of a phenomenon we see in other societies across the globe, where power is being consolidated into a more structured, formal hierarchy; what archaeologists would call ‘early states,'” Hassett said.

“Perhaps [what] we are seeing is a display of power by an increasingly hierarchical society; the power to dispose of great wealth — and even people — might be the same kind of power you need to show to build a state-like society,” Hassett said. “It’s a truly fascinating puzzle that will hopefully tell us more about how human societies form and change.”

In the future, the team plans to do stable isotope analyses (a kind of study that provides information on the birthplace and diet of the deceased individuals) and DNA studies on the skeletons.

Controversial Claim by Geologist: 14 million-year-old vehicle tracks

An ancient civilization drove massive all-terrain vehicles around Earth millions of years ago – and the traces are still visible today – a Russian university scholar claimed.

Dr. Alexander Koltypin a geologist believes that mysterious groove-like markings in the Phrygian Valley of central Turkey were made by an intelligent race between 12 and 14 million years ago.

Geologist  Dr. Alexander Koltypin said: It is supposed to be the old vehicles driven on soft soil on wheels, maybe a wet surface.

‘Because of their weight the ruts were so deep. And later these ruts – and all the surface around – just petrified and secured all the evidence.

‘Such cases are well known to geologists, for example, the footprints of dinosaurs were ‘naturally preserved’ in a similar way.’

Dr. Koltypin, director of the Natural Science Scientific Research Centre at Moscow’s International Independent Ecological-Political University has just returned from a field trip to the site in Anatolia with three colleagues. He described the markings as ‘petrified tracking ruts in rocky tuffaceous [made from compacted volcanic ash] deposits’.

He said: ‘All these rocky fields were covered with the ruts left some millions of years ago….we are not talking about human beings.’

The academic said: ‘We are dealing with some kind of cars or all-terrain vehicles. The pairs of ruts are crossing each other from time to time and some ruts are deeper than the others.’

According to his observations, ‘the view of the ruts leaves no doubt that they are ancient, in some places the surface suffered from weathering, cracks are seen here’. The age of the ruts is between 12 and 14 million years old, he believes.

‘The methodology of specifying the age of volcanic rocks is very well studied and worked out,’ he said.

‘As a geologist, I can certainly tell you that unknown antediluvian [pre-Biblical] all-terrain vehicles drove around Central Turkey some 12-to-14 million years ago.’ He claims archaeologists ‘avoid touching this matter’ because it will ‘ruin all their classic theories’.

He said: ‘I think we are seeing the signs of the civilisation which existed before the classic creation of this world.

‘Maybe the creatures of that pre-civilization were not like modern human beings. ‘

He claimed the ancient ‘car tracks’ are one of a number of clues ‘which prove the existence of ancient civilizations’ but which are often ignored by mainstream scientists. There was no comprehensible system for the tracks but the distance between each pair of tracks ‘is always the same,’ he said.

He added that the distance very much fits that between the wheels of modern cars, but the tracks are too deep for today’s vehicles.

‘The maximum depth of a rut is about three feet (one meter). On the sides of ruts, there can be seen horizontal scratches, it looks like they were left by the ends of the axles used for ancient wheels.

‘We found many ruts with such scratches,’ he said.

Koltypin graduated from the Russian State Geological Prospecting University and completed further studies at the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

More recently he has written books on popular science mysteries.

Israeli Archaeologists Find Hidden Pattern at ‘World’s Oldest Temple’ Göbekli Tepe

Archeologists believe the neolithic hunter-gathers who built huge monoliths in central Turkey 11,500 years ago had knowledge of geometry and a much more complex society than previously thought, archaeologists say.

Since their discovery in 1990. The mysterious monoliths constructed at Göbekli tepe some 11,500 years ago have been confusing archeologists and challenging preconceptions of prehistoric culture.

Chiefly, how could hunter-gatherers with a supposedly primitive societal structure build such monumental stone circles on this barren hilltop in what is today southeastern Turkey? 

Now, Israeli archaeologists, Gil Haklay and his PhD advisor Avi Gopher, of Tel Aviv University , have published a new study in the  Cambridge Archaeological Journal  providing a set of observations suggesting this prehistoric building project was “much more complex than previously thought”, and that it required planning and resources to a degree thought of as being impossible for those times.

At this world-renowned archaeological site several concentric stone circles feature massive T-shaped pillars that reach almost 6 meters (20 ft) in height with animals and anthropological motifs carved in relief.

But this new study focuses on the arrangement and positioning of the three oldest circular stone enclosures at Göbekli Tepe and the researchers claim that underlying the entire architectural plan of these three structures is “a hidden geometric pattern,” which they describe as being “specifically an equilateral triangle.”

Until these new observations, most archaeologists had assumed that the circles at Göbekli Tepe had been built gradually, over a long time period, possibly by different cultural groups, and that older circles were covered over with the new. Never was it considered that all three enclosures might have been constructed “as a single unit at the same time,” said the researchers.

Researcher Haklay told Haaretz that while the initial discovery of the site was a big surprise for the archaeological world, his new research confirms its construction was even “more complex than we thought.”

The new study focuses on enclosures B, C, and D, which have been dated to slightly older than enclosure A, and Haklay, who was previously an architect, applied a method of interpretation known as “architectural formal analysis” to retrace the ancient builders planning principles and methodologies.

Using an algorithm, Haklay identified the center points of the three irregular stone circles, which fell roughly mid-way between the pair of central pillars in each enclosure.

The eureka moment came when the three central points were found to form a nearly perfect equilateral triangle, so accurate in measure, that the researchers say the “vertices are about 25 centimeters (10 inches) away from forming a perfect triangle with sides measuring 19.25 meters (63 ft) each”.

And for those readers thinking this occurrence might be a coincidence, Haklay told reporters at Haaretz  that the enclosures “all have different sizes and shapes” and he says the odds that the three center points would form an equilateral triangle by chance, “are very low.”

This complex abstract floor design underlying the arrangement of Göbekli Tepe, is presented in the new paper as evidence of a “scaled floor plan,” possibly achieved using reeds of equal length to create a rudimentary blueprint on the ground, Haklay suggests.

The archaeologist also thinks each enclosure subsequently went through a long construction history with multiple modifications, but that in the initial building phase “they started as a single project.”

If the underlying geometric pattern is indeed evidence that the three structures at Göbekli Tepe had been built in one ancient engineering project, the feat was three times larger than previously thought, requiring a similar multiplication of hunter-gatherer builders, resources and effort. Gopher suggests maybe “thousands of workers marked” what he called the birth of a more stratified society, with a level of sophistication equatable with much later sedentary groups of farmers.

In conclusion, while the two researchers are convinced their discovery proves the three stone circles had been built contemporaneously, many readers will at this moment, like me, be struggling with a contrasting proposition. What if the earliest builders erected a stand-alone circle then a later culture built another one, randomly positioned, beside the first with no geometric correlation.

Then the third set of builders, perhaps 2000 years later, decided to build their circle equidistant from the previously unrelated first two circles, resulting in an equilateral triangle by independent, although connected design thinking, or even dare we say, by chance?