WORLD

Ancient ships of death: Were they on a mission of politics or plunder?

Ancient ships of death: Were they on a mission of politics or plunder?

For more than a thousand years the ships of death moldered unseen on the shore of the Baltic Sea, sheltering the bones of dozens of Viking-era young men and a trove of rich possessions.

Now, after analyzing the ships and skeletons, researchers have a chilling new idea to explain how so many men died at the peak of their strength: they were diplomats from central Sweden, killed while on a mission to talk rather than fight.

The proposal, outlined in a study in the current issue of Antiquity, runs counter to previous interpretations that the men were raiders or warriors. Whoever they were, their bones give researchers a priceless window into life at the dawn of the Viking era.

Skeletons found on ancient ships on the edge of the Baltic Sea

The “graves give us a rare – if not unique – glimpse of a Viking Age drama,” Ole Thirup Kastholm, a curator at Denmark’s Roskilde Museum who was not involved in the new study, says via email. “It (poses) the most intriguing mystery with plenty of questions to investigate: Who are the dead men? What was the purpose of their journey? … And perhaps the most interesting question: Who did it?”

Whoever interred the dead aboard two ships in what is now Salme, Estonia, in about 750 AD went about their work with great care and respect.

Many of the 41 bodies were carefully positioned, and valuables were scattered among the remains.

Researchers found swords bedecked with gold and jewels and hundreds of elaborate pieces from a chess-like strategy game called Hnefatafl, or The King’s Table. They also found two decapitated hawks and the skeleton of a large dog, which had been cut in half.

In life, men must have been fearsome figures. They were young and tall, at least one nearly six feet.

Analysis of their teeth, combined with the design of the buried artifacts, suggests that they came from central Sweden, not Estonia, says study co-author T. Douglas Price, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The skeletons on the larger of the two ships showed signs of violent death: stab wounds, decapitation marks, and an arm bone cleaved by a blade.

A selection of different sword handles parts and scabbard plates of gilded bronze.

Following the discovery of the smaller ship in 2019 and the larger in 2020, researchers thought the men died on a mission of conquest or plunder. But the evidence didn’t quite fit.

The blinged-out swords seemed more suitable for projecting power than for fighting, and Viking-era warriors generally relied on spears and battle-axes rather than swords, study co-author Jüri Peets of Estonia’s Tallinn University says via email.

Game pieces and animals seem impractical for a military expedition but would’ve provided welcome amusement on a diplomatic trip. The men may have been on a voyage to forge an alliance or establish kinship ties, Peets says, when unknown parties set upon them.

Gaming pieces.

Outside opinion on this explanation is mixed. The theory is “a far better solution than … (a) the military expedition has gone bad,” Kastholm says via email.

But Jan Bill of Norway’s Museum of Cultural History argues that the gaming pieces don’t rule out a voyage devoted to battle. “Soldiers have always had lots of waiting time, and games with them to shorten (this) time,” he says via email.

“Whether this group was on a diplomatic mission, or raiding, or both, I don’t think we can decide from the evidence of what was used as grave goods.” Study co-author Peets says the idea of a diplomatic mission is a “working hypothesis,” and research continues.

Sword or axe marks on a victim’s skull

Young aristocratic men of the day routinely took part in warbands, says James Barrett of Britain’s University of Cambridge via email. Whether the men were intent on diplomacy or bloodshed, he says, the burial site “shows the cosmopolitan, albeit very dangerous, the character of the Baltic Sea area even before (or at the very start of) the Viking Age.”

CZECH REPUBLIC, EUROPE, WORLD

Mummified monks and the accidentally interred, in a 17th-century crypt.

Mummified monks and the accidentally interred, in a 17th-century crypt. 

However, we normally associate mummies with Egypt; you don’t have to become a pharaoh to mummify. There are mummies in Brno, the Czech Republic.

Capuchin Monks mummified in the Crypt; Brno, Czech Republic

This happens when you have an environment that enables very little bacteria to grow and thus does not decompose the flesh. This only partially decomposes the body and gives a “tanned” effect. The mummification of the monks in Brno is not like the mummies of Egypt.

The Egyptian mummies have been mummified by wrappings and preparation, they were meant to be mummified. The monks in Brno were mummified by accident.

When I say Capuchin I don’t mean the monkey; the Capuchin is an order of monks found around the world.

The Crypt and church in Brno were founded in the mid. 17th century. The crypt of the Brno monastery is located in the basement, which is probably basement space leftover from houses originally in that location. When the monks died they where brought to the basement in a coffin on mobile gout.

The coffin used was the same coffin used for every monk for one hundred years. Once there, they have laid down with a few bricks below their heads.

The monks were located in the crypt below the altar. This placement below the alter is very symbolic in the Christian faith, in the bible it states that below the altar of God in heaven lie the souls of the Saints. The monks were not meant to be mummified but due to the environment of the crypt the monks where mummified in place.

The Exterior of Capuchin church

The church is still standing today and you can go and view them in the same position that they lay when buried. The entrance is located behind the church in a small white courtyard.

Alley to church; Brno, Czech Republic

It is reached by walking through abnormally (by today’s standards) narrow alleys with whitewashed walls and small beams holding lanterns high above the street.

Some of the monks have the hoods of their cloaks pulled up over their heads to symbolize a special unit within the Capuchin order. Other monks are buried with objects. There is a monk who was buried with a rosary and a wooden cross signifying some status that he held in life.

Mummification did not only happen to the monks, other members of society where placed in the crypt and where subject to the same mummifying conditions. If you go to the monastery today you can view all of the remaining mummies in the crypt, there are about 25 monks and a handful of townspeople of various class. You can see a high-class family that was mummified in all their finery as well as some choir boys and a doctor.

There is also the body of a Saint in the crypt in Brno. this particular Saint is prepared in the “Spanish style.” She is dressed up in clothing that shows the bones. Saints’ bones are very important because they are primary relics of the Siant.

Having the whole body of a saint would be really important as well because that saint would be the church, monastery, and even the town’s patron. The patron saint of a place, in the middle ages, would be the protector of the people against all enemies, divine or mortal. This saint has been placed in a glass coffin to allow visitors and pilgrims to see the body but not to touch it, increasing the otherworldly sense associated with the divine.

Saint in glass coffin; Brno, Czech Republic
Klatovy catacombs

To me, this is interesting because I wonder how the people of the community viewed the mummified bodies from a spiritual standpoint. The fact that the crypt held the remains of monks, commoners and a saint is also unusual.

In the middle ages a saint’s remains where placed in a high ranking location to be viewed and worshiped by the people, not near the bodies of the locals. This change in the organization of the crypt is obviously changed for a museum set-up but It is still curious that all of these bodies were found together in the same location.

Almost all the information on this monastery and church is in Czech, a language that I do not speak, however, it is interesting to think about how the community would react to finding members of their community mummified in the crypt of the church.

What happens when our own people are mummified? Does this change how we see the dead? Is a dead person just a dead person or does the state of their corpse affect the way we see the person? Does it affect the way we see death?

If you are not expecting a body to be mummified, how does that affect how you deal with death?

If, in the future, we discover that out relative that we had buried as a child had been mummified; how would this affect our grieving process? Would this change our perspective on this person or their death?

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Roman coin hoard found in England near Welsh border revealed

Roman coin hoard found in England near Welsh border revealed

Silver coins from almost 2000 years to the Roman period have been declared a treasure by metal detectors after they are found in a field.

A hoard of Roman silver coins and two medieval finger rings have been declared treasure by H.M. Coroner for Cardiff and The Vale of Glamorgan.

A treasure inquest held at Cardiff Coroners’ Court saw senior coroner for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Andrew Barkley declare a range of objects, including finger rings, a brooch, and a hoard from the Late Bronze Age, as treasure.

The hoard of 91 Roman coins was discovered in Wick, in the Vale of Glamorgan, by Richard Annear and John Player.

A hoard of coins issued by Roman general Mark Antony has been discovered in a Welsh field – more than 2,000 years later.

They were found partly scattered by the previous ploughing. The founders left the undisturbed portion in the ground before reporting the find to the Portable Antiques Scheme in Wales (PAS Cymru) and archeological curators at National Museum Wales.

It is believed the coins date back to the period of Emperor Nero, from 54Ad to 68AD, to Marcus Aurelius, from 161AD to 180AD.

The latest coin was struck in 163-4AD and three coins were issued by Mark Antony in 31BC.

A hoard of coins issued by Roman general Mark Antony have been discovered in a Welsh Field

Edward Besly, the numismatist at National Museum Wales, said: “Each coin represents about a day’s pay at the time, so the hoard represents a significant sum of money.

“The hoard’s findspot is only a mile as the crow flies from that of another second-century silver hoard found at Monknash in 2000, which compromised 103 denarii, buried a little earlier, around 150AD.

“Together the hoards point to a prosperous coin-using economy in the area in the middle of the second century.”

Two Medieval rings were also found in Llancarfan, in the Vale of Glamorgan, by David Harrison .

One of the rings is silver and in the form of a decorated band, which has been engraved and then inlaid with niello. It dates from the 12th century.

The other ring is gold and has a repeating pattern of alternating half-flowers filling triangular panels, separated by a deep zig-zag moulding. It dates back from the late 15th century.

Dr. Mark Redknap, head of collections and research for the Department for History and Archeology at National Museum Wales, said: “These are finger rings from different centuries reflecting different traditions of fine metalworking, which are important indicators of changing fashions in South Wales and the Medieval period.”

Other items found in Llancarfan included a 15th or 16th-century silver finger ring and a 13th or 14th-century silver brooch. A 15th-16th century silver pendant, a 17th-century silver-gilt finger ring, and a Late Bronze Age hoard were found in Penllyn, Vale of Glamorgan. This antique silver uk is worth a lot of money as many collectors show great interest in antiques this age.

An early 18th-century gold finger ring was found in Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan, and another Late Bronze Age hoard was found in Pentyrch, Cardiff.

The items will now be taken to the Treasure Valuation Committee, in London, where they will be independently valued. In most cases, the value of the treasure is split equally between the finders and landowners.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

For over 2,000 years, hundreds of gold and silver torcs lay hidden in a Norfolk field discovered by one man and his metal detector.

For over 2,000 years, hundreds of gold and silver torcs lay hidden in a Norfolk field discovered by one man and his metal detector.

Maurice Richardson has brave all weathers with his reliable metal detector for 40 years and dreams of the buried treasure. But he almost ignored an unpromising beep when he was searching for waste from a wartime air crash while he was being pelted with rain.

However the 59-year-old is glad his curiosity got the better of him after his persistence in digging through more than two feet of Nottinghamshire mud yielded a stunning 2,000-year-old gold treasure.

Now the artifact, an Iron Age torc, has been sold for a mammoth £350,000, and it was unveiled at the British Museum as the most valuable discovery in recent times.

Metal detector enthusiast Maurice Richardson discovered this 2,000-year-old gold torc while digging through two feet of Nottinghamshire mud

The intricately decorated collar was so perfect that Mr. Richardson, a tree surgeon in his day job, initially struggled to convince experts it wasn’t a forgery.

‘I got the signal, but it was raining quite hard and I thought it was not going to be worth it,” he said.

‘However, it played on my mind, so I started to dig.  

‘It was about two foot four inches down and when I got within four inches I decided to use my hand. I got down on my stomach and started scraping the soil away and it was then I saw what it was.  

Maurice Richardson

‘You look and look for things like this and you read about other people finding them, but it never happens to you.  

‘It’s a wonderful feeling and just shows that anyone can do it. It’s not about the money, but the fact that it has been saved for the nation.

‘It’s 2,000 years in the ground and it is unique. What are the chances of walking acres of field and passing over it? The odds are astronomical.’

The collar is similar to others found across Iron Age Europe and closely resembles the Great Torc, found at Snettisham in Norfolk in 1950 and now one of the British Museum’s most-loved treasures. It was painstakingly crafted using around 50m of hand-rolled dark gold alloy wires which were in turn plaited into eight thin ropes and then twisted together – the word torc comes from the Latin for ‘twist’.

Finally, hollow rings were attached to either end, carved with spiral patterns as well as animal and plant forms. Such jewellery would have been worn by the most powerful men and women in Celtic Britain or placed on statues of gods.

The collar found by Mr Richardson in a secret location near Newark in February 2005 was probably buried as an offering in about 75BC, more than a century before the Roman conquest. Terrified of being burgled, he hid it under the floorboards of his home before carrying it to the local coroner’s office in a Morrison’s plastic bag.

‘When I got there I unwrapped it and plonked it on the desk, and he stopped in his tracks and said “My God, where did you find that?”‘ he said.

After being authenticated by experts it was bought by Newark and Sherwood council for £350,000, most of the money coming from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and is due to be displayed at the local museum.

The proceeds were split between Mr Richardson – who put his share towards a new car and kitchen – and Trinity College, Cambridge, which owns the land.  Sarah Dawes, the council’s head of leisure and cultural services, said she had been ‘blown away’ when she saw it.

‘We thought it was fake, it was too good to be true,’ she admitted.

‘You can put a value on an object like this, but in terms of importance and the nation’s history you cannot put a price on it.’

Other finds include a 13th-century medieval silver seal matrix and a horde of more than 3,600 Roman coins. Culture minister Barbara Follett said interest in searching for long-lost artefacts had been boosted by television programmes like Time Team as well as celebrity treasure hunters such as former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Iron Age Dice and Game Pieces Unearthed in Norway

Iron Age Dice and Game Pieces Unearthed in Norway

In western Norway Archaeologists have found unusual elongated dice and board game pieces from the Roman Iron Age.

The four-sided elongated dice

Norwegian archeologists agreed last month to dig up the remains of a small cairn of the early iron age in western Norway. Dotted with monuments and grave mounds, the scenic location overlooking Alversund played an important role in Norwegian history.

The site at Ytre Fosse turned out to be a cremation patch. Amidst the fragments of pottery and burnt glass, archaeologists found a surprise: rare Roman Iron Age dice and board game pieces.

“It’s amazingly exciting. Such findings were not found in Norway and Scandinavia many years before. The special thing here is that we have found almost the whole set including the dice,” said Morten Ramstad from Bergen University Museum to NRK.

A status symbol

Archaeologists also found the remains of what was likely a powerful person. The nearby Alverstraumen straight was an important point on the sea route between the north and south of Norway. This was named Nordvegen, the northern way, from which Norway takes its name.

The excavation work.

The bone debris, carefully decorated pottery, and burnt glass indicate the person cremated here was likely of high status. But it’s the gaming pieces that highlight this more than anything else.

“These are status objects that testify to contact with the Roman Empire, where they liked to enjoy themselves with board games. People who played games like this were local aristocracy or upper class. The game showed that you had the time, profits, and ability to think strategically,” said Ramstad.

The gaming discovery

The pieces are of a very rare type, known to be from the Roman Iron Age, dated to around AD 300. The haul included 13 whole and five broken game chips along with an almost completely intact elongated dice.

Game pieces.

The dice are marked with number symbols in the form of point circles and have the values ​​zero, three, four, and five. Less than 15 of these have been found in Norway. Similar dice were found in the famous Vimose weapon-offering site at Fyn in Denmark.

Strategic board games

The gaming board at Vimose was also preserved, so we have some idea of what board games may have been played during the period in Scandinavia. Inspired by the Roman game Ludus latrunculorum, board games seem to have been a popular hobby amongst the Scandinavian elite of the time.

These games are an early relative of the more famous board game Hnefatafl played during the Viking Age. The strategy game was likely played for enjoyment or even strategic training on long ocean voyages. Hnefatafl pieces found recently on Lindisfarne suggest Vikings travelled with the game.

“Finding a game that is almost two thousand years old is incredibly fascinating. It tells us that the people then were not so very different from us,” said Ramstad.

The results from the Ytre Fosse excavation should contribute to more precise data on the chronology of dice and gaming pieces in Early Iron Age Norway. With further study, we could learn more about the significance and social impact of gaming during these times.

“This excavation connects Norway to a larger network of communication and trade in Scandinavia. At the same time, the findings can help us to understand the beginnings of the Iron Age in Norway,” said archaeologist Louise Bjerre.

The findings will now go to the University lab in Bergen to be preserved. Archaeologists hope that the bones and objects from will in time be exhibited to the public.

Some of the pottery pieces.

Archaeology in western Norway and beyond

The University of Bergen’s Department of Cultural History aims to research, collect, conserve, and communicate. Their Bergen museum exhibits objects from prehistory, Norwegian folk art, church art, and ethnographic items from across western Norway.

The museum’s collections also include the archaeological finds from medieval Bergen, located at Bryggens museum.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Ancient Egyptian ‘city of the dead’ discovery reveals ‘elite’ mummies, jars filled with organs and mystery snake cult

Ancient Egyptian ‘city of the dead’ discovery reveals ‘elite’ mummies, jars filled with organs and mystery snake cult

A new burial chamber on the bottom of a communal burial shaft was unearthed in 2018, during exhilaration work carried out by the Egyptian-German team of the University of Tübingen, operating in Saqqara with a 30-meter deep connection to the mummification workshop discovered along with a large tomb complex with five burial chambers in 2018.

The project uncovered the sixth burial chamber behind a 2,600-year-old stone wall after more than a year of research and documentation

The new-discovered chamber had four wooden coffins in a poor state of preservation said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The Minister of State for Antiquities, Dr. Ramadan Badri Hussein, said that one of the coffins belongs to a woman called Didibastett.

She was buried with six canopic jars, which contradicts the custom in ancient Egypt which was to embalm the lungs, stomach, intestines, and liver of the deceased, and then to store them in four jars under the protection of four gods, known as the Four Sons of Horus.

In a tomb deep below the desert, Egyptologist Ramadan Hussein (left) and mummy specialist Salima Ikram (right) examine the coffin of a woman who was laid to rest inside a limestone sarcophagus weighing more than seven tons.

The mission examined the content of Didibastett’s two extra canopic jars using computerized tomography (CT) scan. Preliminary analysis of the images indicates that the two jars contain human tissue.

Based on this result, there is a possibility that Didibastett had received a special form of mummification that preserved six organs of her body. The mission’s radiologist is currently conducting a thorough study of the images in order to identify the two extra organs.

Workers use a hand-cranked winch to lower tools and other gear to the mummy workshop and tombs 100 feet below. The burial complex occupied a prime location at Saqqara—within sight of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, one of Egypt’s oldest and most sacred monuments.

After studying texts on the coffins and sarcophagi in the burial chambers, the mission identified priests and priestesses of a mysterious snake goddess, known as Niut-shaes. Indications are that the priests of Niut-shaes were buried together and that she became a prominent goddess during the 26th Dynasty.

A priestess and a priest of Niut-shaes, who were buried in the same burial chamber, were possibly Egyptianised immigrants.

Their names, Ayput and Tjanimit, were common to the Libyan community that settled in Egypt from the 22nd Dynasty (ca. 943-716 BC) onward. Ancient Egypt was a multicultural society that received immigrants from different parts of the ancient world, including Greeks, Libyans, and Phoenicians among others.

Hussein said that the mission conducted non-invasive testing, called X-ray fluorescence, on the gilded silver mask that was discovered on the face of the mummy of a priestess of the goddess Niut-shaes. This test determined the purity of the mask’s silver at 99.07 percent, higher than Sterling Silver at 93.5 percent. This gilded silver mask is the first discovered in Egypt since 1939, and the third such mask to ever be found in Egypt.

A priest named Ayput was interred in a stone sarcophagus carved in the shape of a human, a style known as anthropoid. The mummy’s wrapping were coated with tar or resin, giving it a dark color.
Some of those buried at the complex were identified as priests and priestesses of a mysterious snake goddess.

An international team of archaeologists and chemists from the University of Tübingen, the University of Munich, and the Egyptian National Research Centre in Cairo carried out chemical testing on the residue of oils and resins preserved in cups, bowls, and pots found in the mummification workshop.

Early results of these tests give a list of mummification substances, including bitumen (tar), cedar oil, cedar resin, pistachio resin, beeswax, animal fat, and possibly olive oil and juniper oil, among others. The team is finalizing a report for scientific publication.

In July 2018, Khaled El-Enany, minister of tourism and antiquities, announced to the world the unprecedented discovery of a mummification workshop complex at Saqqara from the 26th Dynasty (ca. 664-525 BC). It included an embalmer’s cachette of pottery and a communal burial shaft.
This shaft is 30 m. deep and has six tombs.

The tombs contained around 54 mummies and skeletons, five large sarcophagi, a dozen calcite (Egyptian alabaster) canopic jars, thousands of shawabtis figurines, and a rare gilded silver mummy mask.

This discovery was rated among the top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2018 by Archaeology Magazine and Heritage Daily.

The mission of the University of Tübingen will resume its full investigation of the 26th Dynasty cemetery at Saqqara in the winter of 2020.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Shackled skeletons found in an ancient Roman burial ground in France

Shackled skeletons found in an ancient Roman burial ground in France

Hundreds of Roman graves have been found by archaeologists, some of which contain skeletons still bound by shackles on their necks and ankles.

A wider photo shows the same skeleton – thought to be a man – with a shackle on his ankle as well as his neck

A building site about 250 m west of the amphitheater of Saintes once used for fighting between gladiators and the wild animals is an incredible excavation.

Among the hundreds of graves found, five skeletons – four adults and one child – were found shackled or chained.

Dating back to the first and second centuries AD, the gravesite is thought to have been an important necropolis used for those massacred at the nearby stadium.

Construction on the Saintes amphitheater began during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) and was completed under Claudius (A.D. 41-54). In its finished state, the arena could hold around 18,000 people. Today, it is the largest remaining amphitheater in France, as well as the oldest.

Archaeologists began digging at the site of the necropolis—located 250 meters west of the Saintes amphitheater—last year. It was typical for Roman necropolises, used for burials and cremations, to be located in the countryside, outside major towns and cities.

The Saintes burial ground contains hundreds of graves, which archaeologists have dated to the first and second centuries A.D. Experts believe the necropolis may have been used for those who died at the nearby stadium, during the gladiatorial combats that were common during Roman times.

Among the hundreds of sets of human remains at Saintes, the scientists uncovered a particularly unsettling find: five skeletons wearing riveted iron shackles of various types, suggesting that the deceased might have been slaves.

Even more disturbingly, one of the skeletons belonged to a child. Three of the adults had their ankles bound by iron chains, while the fourth was shackled at the neck and the child had a chain attached to his or her wrist.

This group of four people was buried head-to-toe in a small, trench-style grave

Archaeologists previously discovered shackled skeletons in the 2005 excavation of a cemetery in York, England, which also dated back to the days of the Roman occupation.

Researchers at the time proposed that the remains belonged to slaves, who were often forced to fight each other to the death in Roman gladiatorial contests. (Some of these gruesome battles pitted an armed man or woman against another combatant who was unarmed.) In the case of the York cemetery, some of the shackled bodies were found with bite marks, suggesting wild animals might have killed the victims in the gladiatorial arena.

The archaeologists now hope to determine a cause of death for the individuals found buried in the Saintes necropolis, as well as their status during their lifetime, and whether all those buried there were members of the same community.

Many of the skeletons were buried in pairs, laid out side by side with their heads and toes touching in rectangular pits that resembled trenches.

While some ancient Romans were buried with their possessions, the graves at Saintes contain almost no artifacts, except for several vases recovered beside the body of one man.

One skeleton—belonging to a child—was found with coins placed over the eyes, a common practice in Roman times.

Romans believed a river separated the world of the living from that of the death, and that the coins enabled the dead person’s spirit to pay the ferryman for safe passage across that river to the afterlife.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Controversial 1,500-Year-Old Bible Could Re-Write The History Of Jesus

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.

The Vatican reportedly placed an official request to examine the scripture…

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.

Could this ancient Bible re-write the history of Jesus Christ?

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.

All In One Magazine