The rather old bread, complete with an inscription, was unearthed by archaeologists in Turkey and pictures Jesus in a different way to the usual, modern depictions of the Christian leader
A 1,200-year-old loaf of burned bread has been unearthed in Turkey that appears to bear the image of Jesus Christ himself.
The slice of Christian history was discovered by archaeologists at the Topraktepe dig site, once home to the ancient city of Eirenopolis in south-central Turkey. Local officials from Karaman Governorship revealed the miracle find in a Facebook post on October 8.
Dating back to the 7th or 8th century AD, the sacred snack is one of five loaves pulled from the site and experts reckon it may have been used in early Christian rituals as communion bread. The charred loaf features a faint but unmistakable image of Jesus.
However, he is not his usual pose with his right hand raised, which is as the standard of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox art, according to officials.
Instead, the holiest of holy men is pictured as a humble farmer or sower – a powerful symbol of fertility and labor in early Christian belief.
Even more incredible, an inscription carved into the crust reads: “With gratitude to the Blessed Jesus.”
Photos from the dig show the blackened bread, eerily preserved by carbonisation, complete with mysterious religious symbols, including a Maltese Cross on one.
Experts are calling the find “one of the best-preserved examples ever found in Anatolia.” One official said, “The preservation is astonishing — it’s like the bread was baked yesterday… if you don’t mind it being slightly charred and 1,200 years old.”
The discovery adds to a string of jaw-dropping Christian finds in the region, reports the New York Post.
In Armenia last year, archaeologists revealed one of the world’s oldest Christian churches, dating back to the 4th century.
Meanwhile, in the ruins of Olympus, a 5th-century church was found bearing the warning: “Only those on the righteous path may enter here.”
Elsewhere in the world of Jesus faces, a scientist studying the Shroud of Turin claimed it was “not placed on face of Jesus” in a startling new find.
The famous burial cloth, believed to have been used to wrap Jesus’ dead body after his cruxificion, could not have been used on a three-dimensional human body, a new study claimed in August.
Brazilian 3D digital designer Cicero Moraes used modeling software to compare how cloth drapes over a body compared to a sculpture.
He said the image on the Shroud of Turin was “more consistent with a low-relief matrix” and added: “Such a matrix could have been made of wood, stone or metal and pigmented (or even heated) only in the areas of contact, producing the observed pattern.”
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