Archaeologists uncovered five 1,300-year-old loaves of bread in southern Turkey.
Four bearing Christian motifs, and one an image of Christ, sheding light on religious importance and daily life in Medieval times.
The discovery was made at the Topraktepe excavation site in the Karaman Province of Turkey, in the ruins of the ancient city of Irenopolis.
While excavating a site in southern Turkey, archaeologists uncovered a series of rare artefacts — five loaves of ancient bread, one bearing the image of Jesus Christ. The discovery dates back to the 7th or 8th century C.E., opening a window into culture and religious life 1,300 years ago.
The discovery was announced by the Karaman Governorship of Turkey through a Facebook post on Wednesday, 8 October 2025. The loaves were found perfectly preserved through a natural process of carbonization — their outer layers charred during an ancient fire, sealing them from oxygen. The loaves are circular – around 10cm in diameter and 2-3cm thick. Four of the loaves are marked with Maltese Crosses, a Christian motif, and one is engraved with a rare depiction of Christ along with an Ancient Greek inscription reading, “With our thanks to Blessed Jesus.”
The discovery was made at the Topraktepe excavation site in the Karaman Province of Turkey, in the ruins of the ancient city of Irenopolis. The excavation was led by archaeologists from the Karaman Museum Directorate in collaboration with Selçuk University. They dated the artefacts using used carbon analysis and stratigraphic dating.
Finding organic material like bread from this period is highly uncommon. That is why it’s so surprising that this is the third discovery of carbonised bread in Turkey alone – and the most recent one at that. In 2024, researchers unearthed an 8,600-year-old carbonized lump at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, the oldest known bread in the world. Then in early 2025, a Bronze Age settlement yielded another charred loaf dating back 5,300 years, possibly linked to ritual activity. These finds, though scattered across millennia, trace a continuous thread of sustenance and spirituality through Anatolia’s long history.
Even more unusual, however, is the design — a portrayal known as ‘Sower Jesus’ or ‘Jesus the Farmer’, rather than the more familiar ‘Jesus the Savior’ seen in Byzantine art. Karaman Museum Directorate said that the iconography reflects Irenopolis’s agrarian identity and the community’s emphasis on labour and fertility alongside worship.
The careful shaping and stamping of the dough indicate ritual intent, suggesting that these were more than everyday loaves — they were offerings, prayers baked into form. Bread lies at the heart of Christian symbolism, representing Christ’s body in the Eucharist and serving as a metaphor for divine nourishment in the Bible. The loaves, marked with the cross and the image of Jesus, may have been prepared for holy communion during the early Christian period, embodying the verse, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).
The Jesus bread highlights how central faith was in daily life in Irenopolis, once a bishopric centre during the Roman and Byzantine periods — its name literally means ‘City of Peace’.
Over a millennium later, the charred surface of that humble loaf still carries the marks of devotion, work, and hope — a quiet reminder that even something as simple as bread can endure as a record of human faith, culture, and labour. [Rh/Eth/DS]
