Piece Of Jesus' Crucifixion Cross Found In Turkey Claims Archaeologist, Photos And Video

Archaeologist Gulgun Koroglu displays a stone from the box that held what may be hold a piece of the crucifixion cross

“We have found a holy thing in a chest. It is a piece of a cross, and we think it was [part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified],” Gulgun Koroglu, head of the years-long excavation at the site, told reporters. “This stone chest is very important to us. It has a history and is the most important artifact we have unearthed so far.”

Gulgun Koroglu with a piece of the stone box in which the piece of the cross was found

There is a history of the cross of the cruxifiction being in Turkey. Saint Helena also known as Saint Helen, Helena Augusta or Helena of Constantinople (ca. 246/50 – 18 August 330) was the consort of Emperor Constantius, and the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. She is traditionally credited with finding the relics of the True Cross, with which she is

often represented in Christian iconography.

Coin of Flavia Iulia Helena, mother of Constantine who is now known as Saint Helena 

Constantine appointed his mother Helena as Augusta Imperatrix, and gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of Judeo-Christian tradition. In 326-28 Helena undertook a trip to the Holy Places in Palestine. According to Eusebius of Caesarea she was responsible for the construction or beautification of two churches, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church on the Mount of Olives, sites of Christ’s birth and ascension. Local founding legend attributes to Helena’s orders the construction of a church in Egypt to identify the Burning Bush of Sinai. The chapel at St. Catherine’s Monastery—often referred to as the Chapel of Saint Helen—is dated to the year AD 330.

Jerusalem was still being rebuilt following the destruction caused by Emperor Hadrian. He had built a temple over the site of Jesus’s tomb near Calvary, and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. Accounts differ concerning whether the Temple was dedicated to Venus or Jupiter. According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and, according to the legend that arose at the end of the 4th century, chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. The legend is recounted in Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius (died 395) and at length in Rufinus’ chapters appended to his translation into Latin of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, the main body of which does not mention the event. 

Then, Rufinus relates, the empress refused to be swayed by anything short of solid proof and performed a test. Possibly through Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, she had a woman who was near death brought from the city. When the woman touched the first and second crosses, her condition did not change, but when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered, and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross. 

On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; churches were also built on other sites detected by Helena. Sozomen and Theodoret claim that Helena also found the nails of the crucifixion. To use their miraculous power to aid her son, Helena allegedly had one placed in Constantine’s helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse.

A number of human skeletons were unearthed during the excavations.