Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 165 Treasure
"This is most likely a secret church, or even a holy place of ancient Christianity." Looking at the patterns painted on the ceiling, Liang En explained to his companions.

"Since the Ottoman Empire occupied the Anatolian Peninsula, the local Christians have been able to retain their original beliefs for a long time."

"However, with the passage of time and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the empire's management of people's beliefs has become more and more strict, even to the point of harshness."

"Under such pressure, most people choose to change their religion, while others choose to hide their beliefs to avoid persecution. For example, this church in the mountain is like this."

"According to the style of this church, this church was probably built for some reason in the Byzantine era, and it was rebuilt many times and new elements were added in the following days."

"Your guess is very reasonable. I even suspect that this church may have been abandoned and then reactivated." Pierce, who had been dimming the brightness of the headlights to observe the patterns on the ceiling, pointed to the roof and said. .

Liang En quickly walked up to him and looked at the place he was illuminating with the headlamp, only to see that a palm-sized piece of the mural at that place fell off, and the lower layer of the peeled off mural revealed traces of a mosaic puzzle.

"Your guess should be in line with the facts. It seems that a group of people left here and used plaster to block the exquisite mosaics below, and the people behind repainted various patterns on the plaster without knowing it. All kinds of patterns."

After turning on the camping lights they carried with them to take pictures of the entire church, Liang En and the others left this room and returned to the intersection just now, and then walked in through the road on the left.

The road on the left is lined with small houses on both sides. Judging from the stone platforms left behind, these houses should be the places where priests and visitors lived.

These rooms were also cleaned very clean, which, like the church, shows that when the group of people abandoned this place back then, they abandoned it in an orderly and planned manner.

"Go to the right and take a look." After finishing the filming and returning to the crossroad just now, Liang En glanced at the darkened sky outside and said, "After watching it, you can just rest in this cave for the night."

Compared with the surrounding flat lands, this cave is indeed a very good camping site in the wild. Not only is it dry and ventilated, but the high entrance can also avoid the attack of wild animals.

It was confirmed that outside the campsite tonight, everyone seemed to be in better spirits, and then dragged their tired bodies towards the passage on the right.

"I think this direction should be the warehouse of the church." Liang En said while walking, "Because for an ordinary church, apart from the residence, the most important ancillary buildings are warehouses for storing various items."

Because those people cleaned up very cleanly when they evacuated back then, even the door panels were removed and moved away, so it was much easier for Liang En and the others to check.

But when the three of them got close to the end of the corridor, they found a big hole behind a house, and some gravel and broken bricks were scattered near the hole.

"This is—" Looking at the breach, Liang En and the others quickly turned the light from the headlamp to that direction, only to see a broken skull lying on the ground.

Soon, Liang En and the others walked into the secret room and found seven completely boneless corpses in the secret room. These corpses looked broken and incomplete, and multiple gunshot wounds could be found on each of the corpses.

And the spot of light that Liang En found through the card appeared on one of the skeletons. Like the other skeletons, this corpse fell to the ground, with its arms tied behind it by a rotten rope.

Judging from the posture of the skeleton falling forward and the bullet holes in the back of the head, this person should have been tied up before being killed with a pistol to the back of his head in an execution posture.

Over the long period of time, the flesh and blood attached to the bones had completely decayed and turned into ashes, and the clothes on his body had also turned into rags, only some relatively corrosion-resistant things remained.

"The other party used 9mm Parabellum bullets. And there is a high probability that it was fired from a submachine gun." Fan Meng made a more professional judgment after checking the marks around him.

"Because if it was a pistol, then the forehead part of these skulls should be much more broken than it is now, and the pit that fell into the stone should also be shallower than it is now."

submachine gun!It seems that this group of attackers is more complicated than we thought. Liang En said in a low voice, looking at the bullet that Fan Meng picked up from the ground just now, which passed through a person's head and then hit the stone wall and deformed.

In addition to the bones, there are two large boxes in the corner of the room. The boxes are all open, and inside are a pile of decayed textiles, some rusted cups, and jewelry. Pieces of rust.

While Fan Meng was inspecting the bones, Liang En and Pierce came to the side of the box and checked the things packed in the box.

Although the textiles were so rotten that they couldn't see their original appearance, after a simple treatment of the metal objects, almost every object could be seen to have a double-headed eagle and the uppercase letters XP stacked together to form a logo.

"If Mr. Conrad's notes are correct, these two boxes contain the last treasures of the imperial family of the Eastern Roman Empire, or in other words, these are the royal items that cannot be sold and have the royal logo."

After the inspection was over, Liang En sighed and said that he was holding a rusty copper cup inlaid with a circle of colored transparent crystals in his hand.

The reason why this copper cup is rusty is because someone scraped off the gold on the surface with a sharp tool, and those colored transparent crystals are not gems, but some colored glass.

"Could this kind of scrap metal be the last treasure of the empire?" Fan Meng showed an expression of disbelief looking at this pile of things that were worthless in terms of workmanship and materials.

Because he had visited many palaces that had now been turned into museums before, and this pile of rubbish obviously couldn't be connected with the precious royal jewels he imagined in his mind.

"Because when Constantinople fell in 1453, the country had exhausted its last bit of resources." As a standard Jingluo, Pierce explained to Fan Meng before Liang En.

"When Mamat II was about to capture Constantinople, there were only [-] defenders left in this city, which was once known as the Queen of the Cities, and these defenders were paid by the emperor who sold all the money. Wealth gained."

"According to the records, the royal family melted the silver candlesticks and scraped the gold from those gilded objects. Also replaced all the precious stones with cheap stained glass. And all the money from this was spent on the army .”

"It's a pity that they still failed to hold this ancient city in the end. Mamaiti II finally captured this great city and completely destroyed the thousand-year-old empire."

(End of this chapter)