Nasreddin Hodja’s tomb in Sivrihisar

ESKİŞEHİR - Anatolia News Agency

A stone coffin that was removed from an old graveyard many years ago in the central Anatolian province of Eskişehir’s Sivrihisar district during a construction and kept in the library of the Ulu Mosque since then was identified as the coffin of Nasreddin Hodja, a sufi believed to have lived in the 13th century.

Anadolu University Professor Erol Altınsapan said it was a big discovery for the Turkish world.

“We removed the bones of his daughter of Fatma Hatun, in 2003 from a graveyard in Sivrihisar and delivered them to a museum. An area 50 meters away from this grave was reorganized by the municipality years ago and this coffin was uncovered. Examinations showed that the coffin belonged to Nasreddin Hodja,” Altınsapan said. He said Akşehir was known as the birth and death place of Nasreddin Hodja but from now on Sivrihisar should be recorded as the place where he was born and died.