The Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica

Nicaea hosted the First Ecumenical Council in 325 CE, and in 2014 a three-naved basilica with narthex and atrium was rediscovered some fifty metres offshore beneath Lake İznik, probably dedicated to Neophytos, killed by Roman soldiers shortly before Christianity was legalised. A survey the next year mapped thirty-six graves, two running under the sanctuary wall, showing the ground was a cemetery before it was a church. Centuries of immersion blackened the bone. These eleven come from the sunken basilica and from the cemetery at the Yenişehir gate, where babies were laid in tile graves. Most are infants and small children; two are women in their late thirties or forties, the mothers and neighbours of that early Christian town.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica?

  The Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica (c. 350-700 CE, Basilica of St Neophytos, Lake İznik (Nicaea), Bursa, Turkey) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 11 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

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  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilica?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

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