Archaeologists uncover 1,300-year-old Christian bread bearing image of Jesus
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Christians 1,300 years ago ate bread that was stamped with Jesus’ face. And we know this because archaeologists have just found some. In Christianity, bread plays an important part in worship, as it represents Jesus’ body in accordance with the gospel story The Last Supper. But now we know that the communion bread has not always looked like this (Picture: The Governor of Karaman)
Archaeologists in Topraktepe, Turkey, discovered five loaves of bread, preserved through carbonisation, which they dated back to either ‘the seventh or eighth century CE.’ It’s thought that an abrupt fire likely caused the carbonisation and kept the bread in what the state local authorities called ‘among the best-preserved examples identified in Anatolia to date’ (Picture: The Governor of Karaman)
So, how did the archeologists know that this bread had a religious, and specifically Christian, connotation? That may be due to the massive mark of Jesus’ face on the bread that featured the words: ‘With our gratitude to blessed Jesus’ written in Greek. The other four loaves had the Maltese cross – an eight-pointed cross symbol associated with Christianity (Picture: The Governor of Karaman)
Popular Science report the researchers said: ‘These 1,300-year-old breads shed new light on a fascinating chapter of early Byzantine life. They prove that piety extended beyond prayers and ceremonies, materializing in objects that carried spiritual significance to the most basic human need: bread’ (Picture: The Governor of Karaman)
A bread that shows Jesus sowing grain may have two purposes. One being to show the parable of the sower, a story relayed by Jesus in three of the four canonical gospels (Matthew chapter 13, Mark chapter 4, and Luke chapter 8). The idea being that preaching the gospels is like sowing seeds. But it could also show how Jesus was worshipped in rural areas compared to major cities like Constantinople (Picture: The Governor of Karaman)
Agriculture was central to the lives of the people worshipping in rural areas so putting Jesus in the same practices they did may have been a way to find deeper connection with Christ, rather than have him as an object of ethereal divinity. It also shows that Christ was seen as a provider who blesses both labor and harvest (Picture: Getty)
Now, the archaeologists want to test the loaves with ‘chemical and botanical analyses’ to see which grains and leavening agents were used to make the bread. They also want to continue searching the area to locate the house of worship from which the bread may have originated (Picture: Getty)
