Tokyo, Japan, Nov 28, 2018 / 00:24 am America/Denver (CNA).
A Christian scroll found in a Japanese museum is believed to be from the earliest days of Christianity in the country, researchers have said.
The scroll measures about 10.5 feet long and about nine inches high, and depicts 15 scenes from the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The pictures include religious figures wearing traditional Japanese garments, and Latin prayers are spelled out in Japanese phonetic letters throughout the scroll.
The scroll was discovered at SawadaMiki Kinenkan museum in the town of Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, which collects historical Christian items.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Centuries-old Christian painting found in Japan <a href="https://t.co/0lly35EfF1">https://t.co/0lly35EfF1</a></p>— NHK WORLD News (@NHKWORLD_News) <a href="https://twitter.com/NHKWORLD_News/status/1064342756099682304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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According to Japanese newspaper The Mainichi, an inscription on the scroll reads “1592 years since His Birth,” leading historians to believe that this was the year the scroll was created. Carbon dating has dated the scroll as having been created prior to the year 1633, the museum said in a press conference.