In southern Turkey, the earth held a 1,300-year-old secret.
In Topraktepe, the ancient city of Irenopolis, a team of archaeologists unearthed five charred loaves from the 7th and 8th centuries. Four bore an engraving of the Maltese Cross. But one was different: it showed a human figure alongside an inscription in Greek that read “With our thanks to Blessed Jesus”.
What is unusual is that this figure is not the Christ Pantocrator that dominates Byzantine art. It is a farmer Jesus, a humble sower, an iconography that is almost nonexistent in the ancient Christian tradition. Experts at the Karaman Museum believe these loaves were used in communion rituals of early Christianity, and that the fire that should have destroyed them ended up, paradoxically, preserving them intact for more than a millennium.
