Irreparable Damage' Caused to 'Rare,' 1,800-Year-Old Artifact Discovered in Israeli Construction Site

Israeli police discovered an elaborately decorated, 1,800-year-old artifact in the historic southern city of Ashkelon after receiving a tip that construction workers had unearthed and then tried to hide the sarcophagus — or stone coffin — the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.

The agency described the find as “one of the rarest sarcophagi ever discovered in Israel.”

The Antiquities Authority said “irreparable damage” was caused to the 2-ton limestone artifact after it was “repeatedly struck by a tractor in different places, scarring the stone and damaging the decorations sculpted by an artist on its sides.”

The discovery was described as “one of the rarest sarcophagi ever discovered in Israel.” (Photo courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority/Yoli Shwartz)

Dr. Gabi Mazor, a classical periods expert previously with the Antiquities Authority, said the intricate themes decorating the burial box suggest it belonged to an affluent family.

The sarcophagus features a life-sized carving of a man wearing an embroidered shirt and a tunic around his waist.

“The hair is arranged in curls, in a typical Roman hairstyle," Mazor said. “On the other side of the lid is a carved relief of a metal amphora (a vessel used for transporting liquids such as wine) from which there are intertwining tendrils bearing grape clusters and grape leaves."

Though they have not had much time to examine the box, which was recovered late Tuesday night, researchers believe that the man’s eyes were once inlaid with precious stones.

Mazor described the images on the sarcophagus as “wreaths and images of bulls' heads, naked Cupids, and the head of the monstrous female figure Medusa, which includes remains of hair together with snakes, part of a commonly held belief in the Roman period that she protects the deceased.”

The Israeli Antiquities Authority accused contractors building a new neighborhood in Ashkelon of using heavy equipment to pull the sarcophagus out of the ground “while aggressively damaging it,” then hiding it behind a stack of sheet metal before pouring “a concrete floor in the lot so as to conceal any evidence of the existence of the antiquities site.”

“This is an extremely serious case of damage to a rare antiquity of unprecedented artistic, historical and cultural importance,” Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority said.

Police and the Antiquities Authority’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery questioned five Palestinian workers from Hebron who were sleeping at the site Tuesday night, at which time authorities also found the hidden sarcophagus, the Israeli agency said in a statement. The construction workers showed investigators pictures they took when they discovered the artifact.

Two contractors from Ashkelon were later detained by police and questioned under caution. According to the Antiquities Authority, damaging an antiquities site carries a a maximum punishment of five years' imprisonment.