Mysterious chapel found beneath school garden in Turkey. Take a look inside
Ömer Faruk Yavaşçay was studying a map of Turkey from 1912 when he noticed something peculiar: a spot on the map named “Ayazma” — a Turkish word that means holy water for Orthodox Greeks.
Yavaşçay was intrigued by the spot, so he investigated and learned that residents in the Bağcılar district used it as a fountain until about 30 years ago, he told McClatchy News. The fountain was actually a forgotten chapel beneath a high school’s garden.
Photos shared by Yavaşçay on Twitter, now rebranded as X, show a large, stone cavern with indentations in the walls. There are bars extending across the ceiling of the small room, which was behind an iron gate.
Yavaşçay said it isn’t clear who built the chapel or when it was built, but it was likely constructed by residents of a Greek village who inhabited the region during the end of the Ottoman period in the late 1800s.
“Tree branches blocked its front ... a situation that a normal person would barely notice,” Yavaşçay said.
The chapel should undergo more extensive excavation and study, Yavaşçay wrote in his tweet.
The Bağcılar district is less than 10 miles northwest of Istanbul.
This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 10:49 AM with the headline "Mysterious chapel found beneath school garden in Turkey. Take a look inside."
