Winter also said that they discovered the existence of a church dating to the 4th century and that it is one of the region's major churches.
They also found a very large structure during the excavations carried out at another area of the ancient city, he said. "We have only been able to open a part of it and we do not know exactly what it is, but we estimate that it was a building that was used for religious purposes."
Underlining that the ancient city hosted different religions for thousands of years, he said: "As the Dülük in Gaziantep showed us, this was a religious center for thousands of years. Teshup, Christianity, Islam, all religions were here and came one after another."
He said: "We see the flow of our religious history, and we know that all these periods came one after the other and overlap, which is proven by archaeological data."
In addition to the Stone Age, artifacts from the Copper Age and the oldest known mathematical operations can be found in the ancient city, which also has traces of the Paleolithic era.
The ancient city, which changed hands between the Hittites, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, and Alexander empires, conveys the knowledge of many civilizations with its artifacts and historical structures.
In the city, where the Mithraic belief was dominant for a while, there are the world's largest Mithras temples built underground.
