Sarcophagus of St. Nicholas — inspiration for 'Santa Claus' — may have been found: report

The coffin of St. Nicholas — considered the primary inspiration for Santa Claus due to his generosity — may have been discovered at an archeological dig site.

A sarcophagus was discovered in a two-story annex of the Church of St. Nicholas in Turkey, Fox News reported. Experts have long believed it is the famous bishop's original burial site, where the church initially stood. About 200 years after the bishop's death, another church was built on the ruins of his original church.

The church has a tomb on display that is considered the burial location for St. Nicholas, but there has long been debate about whether it matches the history following the theft of the bones. That account is that those who stole the bones broke into it from the top. But the tomb on display in Turkey was destroyed from the side.

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So, archeologists have continued to search for other possible tombs of the patron saint of children and charities.

"While drilling inside the structure, we encountered a surprise sarcophagus," associate Professor Ebru Fatma Findik said. The excavation has been ongoing through Findik's Department of Art History at Hatay Mustafa Kemal University.

"We are working inside the 20-meter-long, two-story structure that borders the church courtyard from the south. This work, among the undecorated sarcophagus group, is made of local stone and has a slightly high barrel roof," Findik said.

"After Myra fell to the Seljuk Turks in 1071, Adriatic rivals Bari and Venice were in competition to bring the relics of Saint Nicholas to their cities. The Bari expedition, with three ships, sixty-two sailors and two priests, beat out the Venetians and the relics arrived in Bari on May 9, 1087," said the St. Nicholas Center.

In 1099, during the Middle Ages, crusaders were said to have raided the church, breaking into the floor, stealing the remains of St. Nichols, and taking them to Italy. At the end of the First Crusade, there was a debate about whether to house the relics in Bari or Venice, as a monastery dedicated to St. Nicholas already existed in Venice.

The remains in Bari were studied and photographed in 1953 and 1957 and compared to the bones that remained, the St. Nicholas Center said on its website. In 1992, an anatomy professor was invited to look at the bones in Venice at the monastery.

The two sets of bones were discovered to have one complementary skeleton.

A pelvis fragment is also at the Shrine of All Saints in Morton Grove, Illinois. It's the only scientifically tested bone fragment, and the University of Oxford radiocarbon dated it in 2017. The results confirmed that it was from the time of St. Nicholas.

Findik said the sarcophagus has a lid and handle, approximately 2 meters long and 1.5-2 meters high.