Ancient cult discovered in region traveled by Apostle Paul before Christianity took hold

Millennia-old inscriptions uncovered in a region tied to the Apostle Paul are shedding new light on how ancient people practiced religion nearly 2,000 years ago.

A recent study examined nine newly documented inscriptions discovered during a survey of Akmoneia, an ancient city in the historical region of Phrygia, in modern-day western Turkey.

Hüseyin Uzunoğlu, an associate professor at Akdeniz University in Turkey, and Münteha Dinç, an associate professor at Uşak University, are the co-authors of the study, published in the journal Gephyra.

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Phrygia is mentioned in the New Testament. It’s associated with the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, who traveled through the region and helped spread Christianity across the Roman world.

But the newly documented inscriptions — which date between the first and third centuries A.D. — highlight the religious traditions that already existed in the region.

Among the most significant was an inscription concerning a statue of Demeter Karpophoros, a goddess associated with fertility and harvests.

Uzunoğlu told Fox News Digital that while the cult was already well established elsewhere in Asia Minor, there had previously been no written proof of its presence in Phrygia.

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“But until this inscription — and a closely related one we published a couple of years ago — there was no epigraphic proof that the cult existed in Phrygia at all, even though Phrygia was a major agricultural region,” he said.

“So this fills in a real gap on the map of ancient religious practice.”

Another inscription revealed that a benefactor named Demades had commissioned a torch-bearing statue, likely helping to illuminate Akmoneia’s colonnaded main street at night.

“This wasn’t just civic piety in the abstract. It was one wealthy citizen literally lighting up his city,” Uzunoğlu said. “Torch-bearing statues are known from only two other sites … so it’s a nice addition to a very short list.”

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A different inscription honored a woman named Mandana as the city’s high priestess. Her husband, Priscus, set up the monument.

“We don’t have all the details of Christian missions [in] that area, but we do know that there was a lot of dialogue and a lot of missionary work in the region.”

“There’s good evidence … of women holding such positions independently,” said Uzunoğlu.

“Mandana’s inscription looks like one of those cases: The honor is hers, not a shared one.”

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The inscriptions also offer glimpses into the personal lives of Akmoneia’s inhabitants.

Uzunoğlu said one funerary altar suggests that a tomb owner prepared the monument for himself and his wife on the condition that she remain unmarried after his death.

Another funerary stone carries epitaphs for two men who were likely soldiers.

The epitaph says that one of the men “fell victim to lawless hands,” or was murdered, according to Uzunoğlu.

“They were probably comrades-in-arms commemorated together — a rare and human glimpse of military friendship in the epigraphic record,” he said.

Overall, Uzunoğlu said the importance of the research lies in what the inscriptions reveal together.

“It’s less about one blockbuster find than about how each new stone incrementally sharpens the picture of how Akmoneians worshipped, honored each other and buried their dead,” said Uzunoğlu.

While the inscriptions are not directly related to Christianity, they offer a window into the religious landscape of Phrygia, a region where the faith gained an early foothold, according to Douglas Estes, a scholar of early Christianity and professor at the New College of Florida.

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Though Phrygia is associated with the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, Estes — who was not involved in the recently published research — cautioned that it is not known whether Paul traveled through Akmoneia itself.

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“We don’t have all the details of Christian missions [in] that area, but we do know that there was a lot of dialogue and a lot [of] missionary work in the region,” he said.

Estes said archaeological evidence points to Christianity gaining followers among ordinary people in Phrygia well before Emperor Constantine came to power.

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“And so it was not a top-down approach, but rather a bottom-up approach, where regular folks were embracing Christianity,” he said.