9 December 2023 The Future is the Product of the Past

Archaeologists unearthed the exact place of the tomb of Saint Nicholas, also known as “Santa Claus,” and the floor on which he walked

An excavation team has discovered the exact location of Saint Nicholas’ tomb, also known as “Santa Claus,” as well as the floor on which he walked, inside the St. Nicholas Church in Antalya’s southern province’s Demre district.

“This is a very important discovery that will add to the value of the church,” said Prof. Dr. Osman Eravşar, the head of the provincial cultural heritage preservation board in Antalya, told Demirören News Agency.

The Antalya Cultural Heritage Preservation Regional Board determined that the upper opening of the dome in the church of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) is the same as the architecture of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus Christ was crucified and ascended to the sky.

Saint Nicholas, who lived between 270 and 343 AD, was an early Christian bishop during the Roman Empire. He is also known as “Nicholas the Wonderworker” because of the numerous miracles attributed to his intercession.

Photo: DHA

The Church of St. Nicholas, located in Demre, was built in 520 on the foundations of an older Christian church where Saint Nicholas served as a bishop and was buried.

“The first church was submerged with the rise of the Mediterranean Sea, and some centuries later, a new church was built above,” Eravşar said.

“Now we have reached the remains of the first church and the floor on which Saint Nicholas stepped,” he noted.

Adding that the existence of the first church has been known since some photos taken in 1910, Eravşar went to say: “The tiling of the floor of the first church, on which Saint Nicholas walked, have been unearthed.”

Photo: DHA

The floor will be exhibited after being covered.

Saint Nicholas, also known as ‘Santa Claus,’ was born in Patara, an important port city at the time that housed the Lycian Union Parliament Building. In 300 BC, he was born as the son of a wealthy wheat merchant.

 St. Nicholas, who traveled from Patara in the Kas district to Myra in the Demre district, lived and served as a bishop here for many years. The Church where St. Nicholas served as a bishop holds great significance in the Christian world, particularly among Orthodox Christians.

Thousands of tourists visit this place every year. While there are frescoes belonging to St. Nicholas on the walls of the church, there is also a sarcophagus from the Roman Period decorated with fish scales and acanthus leaves, which is thought to belong to him.

Related Articles

Drought unveils sunken basilica in Turkey

14 October 2022

14 October 2022

The sunken basilica remains discovered in 2014 became visible as a result of Lake Iznik’s water withdrawal. Climate change is...

Turkey Adds New Sites to UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List

30 April 2021

30 April 2021

Two additional cultural objects have been added to Turkey’s World Heritage Tentative List, bringing the total number of cultural assets...

The camel carvings in Saudi Arabia are 8000 years old!

15 September 2021

15 September 2021

Life-size animal reliefs found in Saudi Arabia were carved almost 8,000 years ago, during the Neolithic period, when the desert...

Researchers find 3,000-year-old shark attack victim in Japan

24 June 2021

24 June 2021

In a paper published today, Oxford-led researchers reveal their discovery of a 3,000-year-old victim—attacked by a shark in the Seto...

Archaeologists discover bones of a woman who lived 14,000 years ago at a site in The Iberian Peninsula

13 August 2021

13 August 2021

Archaeologists have discovered the bones of a lady who lived 14,000 years ago, the earliest traces of a modern burial...

The first settlement of the Cimmerians in Anatolia may be Büklükale

7 June 2022

7 June 2022

Archaeologists estimated that the first settlement in Anatolia of the Cimmerians, who left Southern Ukraine before Christ (about 8th century...

7,000 years ago the earliest evidence for the cultivation of a fruit tree came from the Jordan valley

17 June 2022

17 June 2022

Tel Aviv University and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University researchers have unraveled the earliest evidence for the domestication of a fruit tree....

2,700-year-old bronze figurine found in Germany’s Tollence River: goddess or weight?

9 April 2022

9 April 2022

A Bronze Age female figurine discovered in the Tollense River in northern Germany may have been a goddess, part of...

6,000-year-old Finds in Dorset Downs

11 June 2021

11 June 2021

In the Dorset Downs, a significant landscaping project has revealed a plethora of intriguing findings on a grand scale. Excavations...

Rare Prehistoric Animal Carvings Discovered For The First Time In Scotland

31 May 2021

31 May 2021

Animal carvings thousands of years old have been found for the first time in Scotland. The carvings, estimated to be...

New finds in ancient Rome’s Pompeii show ‘conditions of precarity and poor hygiene, in which people of lower status lived during that time

20 August 2023

20 August 2023

Archaeologists have discovered a small bedroom in Civita Giuliana villa near Pompeii that was almost certainly used by slaves, throwing...

Two more Giants discovered at Mont’e Prama in Sardinia, Italy

7 May 2022

7 May 2022

Two more Giants have emerged from the Mont’e Prama excavations in Sardinia: both of the new statues have been described...

8,000-year-old Musical Instrument found in northwest Turkey

4 July 2021

4 July 2021

Archaeologists in northwestern Turkey’s Bilecik on Tuesday discovered a musical instrument that dates back to an estimated 8,000 years. During...

15 new sculptures discovered in Turkey’s sculpture paradise Yesemek

8 December 2021

8 December 2021

Archaeologists discovered 15 new sculptures during recent digs around the Yesemek Open Air Museum and Sculpture Workshop in the Islahiye...

13th-Century skeletons Unearthed in Annaea Mound

8 May 2021

8 May 2021

At the historical Kadıkalesi archaeological site in Turkey’s western Aydin province’s Kuşadası district, a total of five skeletons thought to...