Archaeologists Unravel Ancient Mystery After Deciphering 2,600-Year-Old Text in Turkey | World

Archaeologists have finally uncovered the meaning of a text inscribed on an ancient Turkish monument known as Arslan Kaya.

The 2,600-year-old monument, whose name translates as “Lion Rock”, is decorated with sphinxes, an image of a goddess surrounded by lions and an almost erased inscription written in Old Phrygian.

There have been many attempts to decipher the inscription since its first discovery in 1884; however, due to time and vandalism, only four letters were visible, causing the monument to be damaged and the inscription to become difficult to read.

This was the case until recently.

Researchers have now discovered that the text, inscribed in an Indo-European language, contains the name of “Matherana”, a goddess recognized by the Greeks as the mother of the gods.

Using shadows from the morning light and old photographs of the monument, the researchers were able to decipher the remaining letters of the inscription and obtain a translation.

The researchers first used shadows from the morning light to highlight the remaining traces and help decipher the letters of the inscriptions.

They then used old photographs of Arslan Kay from the 19th century.^th century to compare them with the supposed inscriptions, which gave them the result of a text in which “Matherano” was written and other symbols often used in Phrygian inscriptions.

Matheran refers to the mother goddess who was revered as a protector and supreme being. Scholars believe the inscription dates back to the first half or mid-600 BC.

If this is true, then the ancient monument was created during the Lydian Empire, when it dominated the territory of the East Turkish Phrygian Empire.

It is claimed that the Lydians were the creators of gold and silver coins, with Lydian coins being the oldest in the world.

The researchers say their discovery supports the idea that the two empires shared the worship of Matheran as a mother goddess.