Free Republic

Oldest Swords Found in Turkey By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News March 25, 2003 — The most ancient swords ever found were forged 5,000 years ago in what is today Turkey, according to Italian archaeologists who announced the results of chemical analysis at a recent meeting in Florence. Digging at Arslantepe, a site in the Taurus mountains of southeast Anatolia, Marcella Frangipane, professor at the department of historical science, archaeology and anthropology of antiquities of Rome University, found nine swords dating back to about 3,300 B.C. Blade and hilt were cast in one piece; moreover, three swords were beautifully inlaid with...

The 5,000-year-old swords found 43 years ago during the excavations in the old mud-brick palace structure in Malatya Arslantepe Mound are the oldest swords in the world. Many archaeologists believed that the earliest swords only dated to around 1600 or 1500 BCE before the discovery of a cache of swords at the archaeological site of Arslantepe in Turkey. The nine swords from the archaeological site of Arslantepe (Melid) attest to the use of this weapon for the first time in the world – at least a millennium before the already-known examples. They date back to the Early Bronze Age (c....

Italian Archeologist: Anatolia - Home to First Civilization on Earth Prof. Dr. Marcella Frangipane is trying to convince scientists that Anatolia is the source of civilization on earth, and not Mesopotamia, as historians have claimed. 20/06/2003 13:20 After 13 years of work in the Aslantepe Mound Orduzu, Malatya, Frangipane says the archefacts she uncovered prove that the first civilization was established in Anatolia. According to Frangipane, the swords he found in Aslantepe and the palace, are the oldest in the world. These findings contradict everything in history books. Frangipane held a seminar, accompanied by a slide show, entitled 'Anatolia and...

Three Christian murder victims were brutally tortured for hours before their death, Turkish media reports reveal. The Islamic zealots who attacked a Christian publishing house in the city of Malatya on April 18 prolonged the suffering of their victims by stabbing them repeatedly with dull knives, the media report. A Sabah newspaper story notes that one victim, the German missionary Tilman Geske, suffered 156 knife wounds. An AsiaNews correspondent notes that the Turkish media have provided gruesome details of the crime, but still shy away from mentioning the motivation of the killers, who were apparently influenced by a vitriolic anti-Christian...