PanARMENIAN.Net February 23, 2012 - The Vatican has requested that Turkey allow it to examine a 1500-year-old Bible that was discovered by Turkish police during an anti-smuggling operation in 2000 and handed over to the Ankara Ethnography Museum.
As Today’s Zaman reported, citing Turkish Bugün daily, the Bible is reportedly written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and is said to be worth TL 40 million. According to the publication, the Bible was seized from a gang smuggling artifacts during a police operation in southern Turkey in 2010 and reportedly preserves its originality and many traces of the period it's from.
The gang was reportedly convicted of smuggling various items seized during the operation, including the Bible, and all the artifacts were kept in a safe in the Ankara Courthouse. The Bible, which was reportedly kept in the courthouse for years, was only recently handed over to the care of Ankara Ethnography Museum.
The leather-bound Bible is written on leather sheets and is now under protection as it is regarded as a valuable cultural asset. Even a Xerox copy of pages from the book is reported to be worth as much as TL 3-4 million.
 |
The gang was reportedly convicted of smuggling various items seized during the operation, including the Bible, and all the artifacts were kept in a safe in the Ankara Courthouse. The Bible, which was reportedly kept in the courthouse for years, was only recently handed over to the care of Ankara Ethnography Museum.
The leather-bound Bible is written on leather sheets and is now under protection as it is regarded as a valuable cultural asset. Even a Xerox copy of pages from the book is reported to be worth as much as TL 3-4 million.