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Archeology

Rare 1,700-Year-Old Roman Statues Unearthed near Binyamina

Archaeologists have uncovered two remarkably well-preserved marble statues, roughly 1,700 years old, hidden inside the wine-collection pit of a Roman-Byzantine winepress near the coastal town of Binyamina. Announced on Monday, June 15, the find emerged during an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation carried out ahead of a national project to expand the Coastal Railway. The figures depict prominent personalities from the Greco-Roman world, and one of them bears a Greek inscription preserving the name “Lycurgus.”

Researchers are still working to determine whom the inscription honors — possibly Lycurgus, the legendary founder of Sparta, or Lycurgus of Athens, a celebrated statesman and orator of the fourth century BCE. Excavation directors Eliran Oren and Avishag Reiss noted that the statues were not found where they once stood. “They were discovered carefully placed face down inside a wine collection pit belonging to a Roman-Byzantine winepress,” they said, adding that the reason for their burial remains unclear, though they may have been concealed for safekeeping.

Archaeologist Michael Sorotzkin recalled the moment workers spotted something unusual jutting from the soil. “Suddenly we realized it wasn’t pottery — it was marble. Then, little by little, the two statues emerged. I still struggle to find the words. It’s simply incredible,” he said. Such portrait sculptures, experts note, once adorned public buildings and the homes of the elite, and may have decorated a luxurious villa nearby. The statues were set to be unveiled to the public for the first time at an archaeological conference on June 18, at the Eretz Israel Museum, before going on summer display.

(INN/VFI News)

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