Were Real Giants Discovered Across the Black Sea Region_

This is Professor Pavel Avatician, an archaeologist at the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia and the director of the Russian Institute of Archaeology. He claims that the discovery of a massive giant skeleton has challenged everything he's been taught to believe as a mainstream academic. Avatician says, I was taken aback because probably the thumb of such a person would be thicker than my arm. I myself participated in the excavations and found the remains of people who were much taller than me. In the early 1960s, a large subterranean metropolis was discovered in Derinku, a district of Neveşir in Turkey, known colloquially as the City of Giants. Traditional folklore says that it was built by literal giants. However, in modern times, some alternative theorists suggest that the extraterrestrials may have been involved in its constructions or that humans built it to either protect themselves from natural or supernatural threats originating from the sky. 20 years later, near the neighboring Armenian city of Sisian, while the construction of a new power plant was under development, workers found what looked like an ancient burial ground. According to eyewitness reports, the remains of an extraordinarily large human was found. Following this, a similar discovery was made 10 years later in 1994, 300 kilometers away in the Goşevank monastery complex. Here, local residents found what was described as several abnormally large skulls. Could these three locations, all within miles of each other, demonstrate why Turkey and Armenia could be the real land of the giants? This is Ahmed bin Fadlen, one of the most noteworthy Arab explorers from the medieval era, made famous in the modern age by Michael Crichton's fantasy novel and movie, Eaters of the Dead, otherwise known as the Thirteenth Warrior, where he helped a band of Vikings battle mutant humans. Now, the true life legacy of this individual is stranger than fiction. Between 921 and 922 AD, together with the embassy of the Baghdad Khalifa, Fadlen visited the Tsar of the Volga Bulgars northeast of the Black Sea. In his journal, he writes about discovering real giants in and near to the region, in particular within the vicinity of the Bulgarian capital. Fadlen wrote how, while still in Baghdad, he heard from a Turkish prisoner that at the headquarters of the ruler of the Bulgarian kingdom was, and I quote, a man of extremely huge physique that was being held captive. However, when Fadlen arrived in the Volga and requested to see him, he had already been killed because of his violent nature. It was originally captured in what is now modern-day Pechora and was delivered to the capital of Bulgaria, where he was kept outside of the city, chained to a huge tree, and there he was strangled. Seeing its remains, Ibn Fadlen confirmed that the creature was abnormally large, with its head being the size of a large barrel. The story of Fadlen's encounter is indirectly confirmed by local legend about a whole tribe of giants within the Black Sea region. Recorded at the end of the 18th century by Russian explorers, as well as an 14th century discovery of a skeleton of a giant man found in the same area that Fadlen wrote about, and in the writings of the 12th century theologian Abu Hamid al-Gharnati, more than 100 years after Ibn Fadlen, al-Gharnati had also visited the capital of the Volga Bulgaria. In 1135, he wrote that he met a man called Dunki, whose growth was more than seven cubits, that's approximately ten and a half feet. The giant had an extremely friendly personality and even fought alongside the Bulgarian army, with bespoke armor and weaponry that had to be carried to him on a wagon due to his huge size. According to al-Gharnati, he was so large he could carry a horse under his arm in the same way a regular-sized human could carry a lamb. Over the next hundreds of years, archaeological evidence of such anomalous humans have been found in and around the Black Sea, especially within Turkey and Armenia. In Cappadocia, in central Turkey, one of the most important discoveries in the Middle East over the last thousand years was made completely by accident. For one local resident, in 1963, what began as a simple home renovation project turned into the unearthing of an almost 3,000 year old underground city. While excavating some large stones from his basement, he discovered a secret passageway that led to a vast underground city experts say could have housed at least 20,000 people. This city that extends at least 13 stories down and more than 70 meters deep housed religious centers, wineries, warehouses, stables, and various other community structures. According to mainstream archaeologists, it was built as a temporary shelter against invaders. However, how they built this city, when they built it, and who were they trying to protect themselves from is still unknown. One popular fringe theory is that the city was constructed by a species of intelligent beings called the Anunnaki, Sumerian deities that according to modern lore possessed advanced technology that may have been alien in origin. According to the theory, because of their technological superiority, these anomalous beings were interpreted by early humans as gods and thus formed the basis for the mythology of many polytheistic religions. Within Islam, we do not believe in the existence of the Anunnaki. However, links have been drawn between them and the jinn as possibly the same thing. An alternative theory also suggests that they may have been ancient Arabian giants originating from Yemen or from a remote lost city in the empty quarter in a vast and largely unexplored area bordering modern-day UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. With regards to the Persian version of their origins, according to the Turkish researcher and writer Göktürk Ramo, the city of Derinkiu might have been ground zero in a conflict between two powerful Anunnaki or Anunnaki-type armies. According to Ramo, in the northern part of the Gulf, one of these aliens that were misinterpreted as gods was Ahura Mazda, an entity from the Zoroastrian religion. He states that these same beings can be found across many different cultures with different names, from Sumer to Greece's Titans. The reason for this is because when the Persians captured Babylon, they laid the foundation of their 200-year-old empire. During these two centuries, they single-handedly ruled a large geography from Greece to Iran in the name of this entity, Ahura Mazda. Göktürk Ramo goes on to say that in this period, the city of Derinkiu and its surroundings also adopted the Zoroastrian religion of Ahura Mazda. He states that according to the Avesta, a book of sacred writings in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda saved his people from a worldwide environmental disaster. Here, the prophet Yima was commanded by him to build an underground sanctuary similar to the one in Derinkiu. Alternatively, according to Nimra Nur for the QAA Qalam website, experts believe that the construction of this city began in the 7th century BC by giants belonging to the tribe of Phrygians living in Turkey at that time. Its construction was then completed during the Byzantine and the Achaemenid Empires. Mainstream history states that the Phrygians were not giants and merely an Indo-European people who inhabited the region in the 8th century BCE. However, in the Geography of Strabo Volume 1, the Greek geographer Strabo, who lived between 63 BC and 24 AD, writes that the Phrygians were indeed giants who settled in an area that is the modern-day Isle of Crete, not too far from Turkey. Although, we could not find any direct references between Strabo's work and the construction of Derinkiu, this idea of giants rather than aliens being involved is consistent with the ancient lore of the country and its Armenian heritage. The late Ron Wyatt claimed to have found all sorts of remarkable discoveries in his lifetime, especially around Mount Ararat in Turkey. According to the controversial Dr. Kent Hovinds, he found a very large human thumb bone near the mountain, while some of the members of expedition team to the area also photographed a very large human jaw that was on display at the Erzurum Hotel in Turkey. This is the only picture online that we can find of these jaws, but if it is true, it will be consistent with the apparent discoveries of giant remains found across Turkey and Armenia over the past 30 years. In 1984, near the Armenian city of Sisyon, while the construction of a new power plant was under development, workers found what looked like an ancient burial ground. According to eyewitness reports, the most striking thing about this makeshift cemetery was that the remains of an extraordinarily large human was found. Then 10 years later, and 300 kilometers away in the Gozavank Monastery complex, local residents found what was described as several abnormally large skulls, as well as the bones of other body parts. Anthropologists and independent researchers have been discovering the remains of extraordinarily large people in the mountains of Armenia for many years. In particular, over the past 30 years since the 1980s, local Armenian residents have reportedly accidentally unearthed the remains of giant bones across its villages. Artsran Hovsepian, a director at the Gozavank Monastery complex, states that giant bones were found after digging for a new road in 1996. Furthermore, according to him and many village locals, giant bones have been found all throughout Armenia, including one skull so large it was double the size of a normal human head, and that over the decades the discovery of giant humanoid bones was a common occurrence. In Goris, a town less than five miles away, another giant eight-foot skeleton was discovered by a tractor driver digging a new foundation. This discovery, made in 1984, was unique because the giant was clutching an iron metal sword that was still rusting when it should have already crumbled to dust. This is Professor Pavel Avatician, an archaeologist at the National Academy of Sciences in Armenia, and the director of the Russian Institute of Archaeology. He claims that the discovery of a massive giant skeleton has challenged everything he's been taught to believe as a mainstream academic. Avatician says, I was taken aback because probably the thumb of such a person would be thicker than my arm. I myself participated in the excavations and found the remains of people who were much taller than me. The medieval Armenian historian Mofsis Korenatsi said that the first gods were fearsome and majestic and were responsible for the first generation of humans, who compared to us were absurdly huge giants. One of them was Hayk, a famous and brave leader and an accurate bowman. In Armenian folklore, Hayk was known as the founder of the Armenian state and part of a race of giants who helped construct the Tower of Bebin, and it was on the northwest side of Lake Van that he had established his home. Apparently, in the Armenian language, the name Hayk is associated with the word gigantic, as if to emphasize the great stature of their most distant ancestor. Whatever the actual reality of this tradition is, these local legends help to strengthen the link between this area and the mythical homeland of the Watchers, anomalous beings who are more commonly known as the fallen angels in Christian religion. This takes us to the Book of Enoch. According to historical and biblical scholars, the Armenian apocryphal traditions of giants in their folklore are related to the figure of Enoch. They state that he was granted a generic role of an end-time prophet and that his writings correspond with pagan Armenian sources. It's through his book, which is not included in the Bible, that we learn about the Watchers and their offspring, the infamous Nephilim. According to apocryphal texts and regional mythology, the Watchers had initially wanted to settle in a place on earth that was abundant and resourceful, while also having easy access to modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Turkey. On a side point, over the past hundreds of years, from the days of the Ottoman Empire to the 90s and mid-2000s, Lake Van has been home to numerous sightings, disappearances, and at least one death at the hands of, or should we say the tentacles of, a Lovecraftian-Eldritch-type anomaly, said to live beneath its waters. Unfortunately, while documented evidence for the Lake Van anomaly has existed for over 100 years, what about the giants of Armenia? The scientist and historian Ruben Natsakanyan, who has an active interest in the existence of giants after stumbling across the remains of one in 1980, was one of the first people called to the town of He claimed that he took the skull to the Institute of Archaeology. However, none of the scientists there took his find seriously and said that what he had was fake without even examining it, because according to them, giants simply could not have existed. Foolishly, he left the skull in the village because of its fragile nature, and unsurprisingly, when he returned years later, the remains of the anomaly could not be found. Till this day, some places in Armenia have never been excavated by archaeologists. This could be due to lack of finances, or sometimes because scientists are not allowed to enter without permission from authorities. So there could be so many more incredible discoveries yet to be unearthed. So what do you believe? Could the Black Sea area and surrounding regions to its east and south really be home to supernatural anomalies, or are we reading too much into local folklore? This is Hossein, a senior patron of the Mysterious Middle East, signing off, and as always, stay curious and stay strong.