TURKISH COPS CATCH 3 MEN AND END UP FINDING SOMETHING HISTORICALLY REMARKABLE
Tokat is famous for its cultural heritage and historical significance. This Turkish city is always full of tourists and historians. However, the beautiful region also attracts some anti-social group that keeps on stealing its beauty away. This is the reason why the police always stay vigilant. One case emerged when police nabbed three culprits transporting a precious object. Before the incident, nobody even knew the thing actually existed. The discovery by the authorities created a ripple amongst the historians.
Tokat
Tokat is situated in the northern-central area of Turkey. The city is 250 miles away from Ankara, capital of the country. The city holds cultural and historical value thanks to the past lives of the region of Anatolia.
Great Significance
No need to say, Tokat has many ancient sites and historical monuments that are of great significance. One of them is Garipler mosque from 12th-century. Many of these landmarks come from eras of Ilkhanate, Seljuq, and Ottoman. Interestingly, these ancient buildings that trace its origin back to the tenth century are today’s popular destination. The city boasts a population of more than 130,000.
Not Everything Rosy
Every coin has its two sides. Though the city enjoys the status of being one of the few places attracting tourism for its cultural and historical affluence, the area has also attracted some section of society that is keen on stripping it off of all its cultural values.
Attracting
For the same reasons, Tokat has emerged as a hub for smugglers all around the world. These criminals happened to be very dangerous as they usually have connections with anti-social groups.
Efforts
There have been many raids conducted by police to curb the smugglers in the past many years. but clearly, the efforts made by police are not enough as there has been a steep rise in the cases. And this story narrates one of those peculiar cases.
An Old Painting
In 2015, the anti-smuggling police went on to find an old painting. The painting was oil made. No need to say, the piece of art was very valuable and held a place of importance in the world of art and culture. Luckily, the police managed to nab the culprits on time.
Not Good Deed
It may interest you to know that this act of smuggling was caught during a regular vehicle check on a road. Luckily, the artifacts captured were in a very good condition. There were many valuable artifacts found.
Not The One
However, this did not happen to be the only act of stealing by them. The picture was not the only object being stolen and transported to another city in a suspicious style. There were many others too.
Orphan Man
The piece happened to be the work of well-renowned artist Vincent van Gogh. It was featuring “Orphan Man, Standing,” which has one determining quality. The back of the frame has the name of the Dutch genius.
Transportation
By smuggling, we often mean illegal transportations of contrabands, animals, and money. But here in Tokat the smuggling mainly pertains to transportations of ancient artifacts. The major part of the police of Tokat included consistently chasing and prohibiting black market treasures making through Tokat.
A Tradition
Smuggling of any type is not good but this one is particularly dangerous as it takes away the cultural treasure from a place. The history of Ottoman and Middle Eastern is concentrated in Tokat. The city is primarily known for its cultural heritage. Losing cultural heritage can result in a loss of tourism that would affect the economy of the city.
Remarkable Piece
In one of those four operations, a remarkable artifact was recovered by the police. The antique was nothing like usual. The relic probably represented the most important part of history. Many archeologists didn’t even know it existed.
Three Men
There were three mysterious men who entered the town and started to shop near a shipment of antiquities. There was no detail regarding their identity. Nobody knew who were they and where did their goods come from.
A Meeting
They had come to do a meeting with the prospective buyers of their goods. It was then the sellers laid opened their bag of treasure. The customers felt goosebumps all over their body when they saw it. But interestingly, there was more to it.
Undercover Police
Call it filmy, but these buyers were actually undercover police. The police arrested all of those three thieves immediately after catching them red-handed. And along with that, they secured the cargo as well. The police were in for a surprise as they did not know what was there among the stolen goods. They were soon going to find out.
All The People Involved
Scaringly, there were 10 people involved in this bootlegging. All of them were taken into custody. Turkish police have seen these kinds of cases aplenty. They are well aware of the motive behind the smuggling. Usually, these small groups often have links with large terror outfits.
District Required
The Turkish police had launched four operations in the middle of Tokat and the places around Turhal district. Alarming rise in the cases related to bootlegging forced police officers to come up with operations.
Suspicious Association
Well, this is not clear if the culprits are associated with a terror group. The suspicions of their connection with an anti-social group arise from the observation that almost all of the smuggling units shares a connection with any anti-humanity organization. This is how these organizations gather funds for their functioning.
Distortion
Qais Hussein Rashid, deputy minister for antiquities and heritage of Iraq once said in an interview about a terror outfit, “They steal everything that they can sell, and what they can’t sell, they destroy.” In addition to that, he also said, “We have noticed that the smuggling of antiquities has greatly increased since last June.” So, the situation was only worsening.
Stamped
The item had a stamp of the New York Metropolitan Museum on the back side of it. Along with that, there was also a reference to the state art collection of Germany that is situated in Berlin. Clearly, this means that the painting was actually transported to the Tokat Gaziosmanpasa University for further assessment. This all seemed to be a real deal.
Beyond Imagination
Everything said the officers had not expected in their wildest dream that what had they gotten their hands on. A treasure was awaiting them. There were lots of artifacts spanning different time periods and regions.
Studying The Haul
Police had to know what these artifacts were all about so they called a historian to help them study the haul. There were many antique coins and jewelry but none of them matched the value of an object that was kept among them. It was precious.
Not Usual
You must be wondering what is that precious object. It was something that put the whole world in disbelief. And gave historians a reason to believe in miracles.
A Bible
It was a Bible that was 1,000-year-old. It was something very precious. The book was written in the Assyrian language. The book had compiled a chapter regarding religious history that many archeologists can’t even imagine finding.
Not Good To Eyes
The artifact was not in a very good condition. Out of all the pages, only 51 of them were undamaged. Despite that, it was a perfect window to catch a glimpse of early Christianity.
Amazing Artwork
A leading news agency in Turkey, The Turkish Andalou Agency came out with a video in which a person was sifting through the paled pages of the Bible in order to show the amazing artwork. The Bible was designed before the printing press came into existence. It implies that the scribe had to write each and every letter of the book on their own. Imagine the number of efforts and time the person must have given into this work.
Belonged To
By the amazing appearance of the book, it seems that it was being used by a clergyman or some really wealthy person. It must have been a very important book of its time and not one of those thrown in a drawer of a hotel room.
Artist Do
Artists are known to produce innumerable depictions of Jesus from the past couple millennia. Unfortunately, most of them are lost in time. Some got destroyed whereas some are yet to be discovered.
Gold Filled
The Bible was very special in the sense that it had a primitive portrait of Christ. Moreover, the design was made with the help of gold leaf.
Depicting Virgin Mary
When they went ahead with the inspection, they saw that there were many other golden illustrations as well that included photos of a cross and the Virgin Mary. These books are a very rare sight these days.
Biblical Figures
Other images include biblical figures that were spread all through the undamaged pages of the manuscript. The left side of each page is occupied with an image and the right side is all about the story.
Changing History
This text happened to be an important part of history. The Assyrians used to be powerful Middle Eastern people who later became a subject to persecution. Their language shared lots of similarities with Aramaic.e. the native language of Jesus.
Source Of Information
Historically, this primitive Bible is important because it can give new information regarding early Christianity around Near East. The book might have inculcated the clues of the development of the religion from its very beginning.
Not Easy
The first few centuries of the existence of Christianity was not an easy one. The group practicing the religion was persecuted by the Roman Empire that had dominion over most of the lands with Aramaic as the native language.
Conversion Of Religion
Even though they were persecuted on a daily basis, Latin, Greek and Assyrian speakers decided to embrace conversion to a new religion that talked about compassion, forgiveness, and love.
A Missing Link
The book can work as a missing link in figuring out how Christianity catapulted from the Roman Empire’s small group of disciples to a globally practiced religion.
Artifact
Police found the artifact at a very convenient time. It was held in the British Museum in London. The artifact was depicting the time of early Christians in and surrounding Egypt.
Waiting For Details
It goes without saying that the eminent historians and linguists would keep on looking into the unique history of the Bible. The book is hiding lots of secrets that need to come out.
Not Ordinary
Clearly, this Bible is anything but ordinary. The book is keeping many parts of history inside it so it is good that the book is in the safe hands now. The smugglers might have torn it into pieces.
Amazing
Have you ever come across an amazing story of this sort? Well, it does not happen every now and then. Whereas some cases get resolved easily, there are some that blows our mind completely.
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