{"id":15733,"date":"2026-01-08T07:49:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15733"},"modified":"2026-01-08T07:49:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:49:26","slug":"pre-nicene-christian-art-found-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=15733","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Nicene Christian art found in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                            <span>An archaeologist at work in the tomb in Nicaea &#8211; present-day \u0130znik in Turkey.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a0(Photo: Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a 3rd century mural depicting Jesus as the good shepherd.<\/p>\n<p>The mural, which remains in relatively good condition, is the centrepiece of a number of frescoes in an underground tomb in the Hisardere necropolis near the town of Iznik.<\/p>\n<p>While Iznik may not be a familiar name to many, its ancient name of Nicaea may be better known to Christians.<\/p>\n<p>In 325 AD it was the site of the First Council of Nicaea, a pivotal event in early Christianity when Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor, invited church leaders from all over the known world to resolve key issues of doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>The result was the Nicene Creed, the basic declaration of Christian belief that all major denominations, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, are built upon.<\/p>\n<p>The newly discovered Iznik mural depicts Jesus as a young man in a simple tunic carrying a sheep on his shoulders. He is carrying a date palm, a symbol of eternal life and resurrection.<\/p>\n<p>Other images depicted on the frescoes are a deceased aristocratic couple on a funerary platform and a symposium with servants. No crosses are shown as early Christians were often cautious in the imagery they used due to persecution.<\/p>\n<p>While the discovery of the mural occurred in August of last year, it was not made public until November, shortly after Pope Leo XIV visited Iznik.<\/p>\n<p>The Pope was in the town to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. During his trip to Turkey he was reportedly presented with a tile reproduction of the fresco by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n<p>Archaeologists are hoping that the discovery will provide greater insight into the lives of early Christians and plans are afoot to begin restoration work on the ancient artwork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An archaeologist at work in the tomb in Nicaea &#8211; present-day \u0130znik in Turkey.\u00a0(Photo: Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry) Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a 3rd century mural depicting Jesus as the good shepherd. The mural, which remains in relatively good condition, is the centrepiece of a number of frescoes in an underground tomb in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[4234,72,4794,3142],"class_list":["post-15733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-art","tag-christian","tag-prenicene","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}