The coffin itself is made of carved stone.
The Hurriyet Daily News reports that on January 10, workers in Istanbul discovered an ancient carved stone sarcophagus with human bones inside during foundation excavations at the site of a demolished building in the Büyükçekmece neighborhood.
Archaeologists and anthropologists from the Istanbul Archaeological Museums Directorate conducted an expertise on the site of the discovery and tentatively stated that the burial belongs to the Roman era and the coffin is already two thousand years old.
The human remains and the sarcophagus were removed from the pit with a crane and sent for examination to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
The newspaper notes that since the founding of Istanbul, the area has developed under the influence of several civilizations and the city itself has been the center of different cultures.