Archeologists have unearthed an engraved stone seal some 3,000 years old in southeastern Turkey.
The seal was discovered around Zerzevan Castle, also known as Samachi Castle, a onetime important military base for the Byzantine Empire now in the southeastern Diyarbakir province.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Aytac Coskun, head of the excavation team, said that the castle had been known as 800-year-old military base but recent excavations showed that its history dates back much farther.
“We unearthed a very important group of things this year. The most important of these was a 3,000-year-old Assyrian seal. The castle dates back to the Roman period, but the findings from the Assyrian period took the history of Zerzevan Castle back 1,200 years,” he said.
The seal has an inscribed godlike figure as well as a tree of life, a bird, and holy water in a vessel to give life to the tree of life, showing the importance of the seal, he added.