BEIRUT: A marble bull’s head made 2,400 years ago for a Phoenician temple and looted during Lebanon’s civil war arrived in Beirut on Friday after American officials found it in the US and sent it home.
The object — along with two partial statues that the US is also returning — will be displayed in the National Museum in Beirut early next month, Lebanon’s Culture Ministry said in a statement.
They were stolen from a storehouse in Byblos in 1981 at the height of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, as Christian and Muslim militias battled each other across much of the country.
In recent years, wars in Iraq and Lebanon’s neighbor Syria have laid waste their cultural heritage and created a huge market in looted antiquities, helping to fund Daesh militants.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York said last month it was returning the three statues to Lebanon and was forming an antiquities trafficking unit to stop the trade in looted artifacts.
The three pieces, all excavated during the 1960s and 1970s from the temple of Eshmoun in the port of Sidon and dating from between the fourth and sixth centuries BC, had been sold to private collectors in the US.
The bull’s head was identified by a curator while on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as being among the antiquities stolen in Lebanon.
Located on the east coast of the Mediterranean, Lebanon was an important part of the classical world, home to the Phoenician civilization and part of the Persian and Roman empires. It has several major ancient sites.
During the civil war, curators at its National Museum, which was located on a deadly front line, protected treasures that were not looted by sealing them up in the basement or encasing them in cement.
Others were located in other sites around Lebanon, including to Byblos, an ancient port town north of Beirut, where the three items returned on Friday were stolen.
Ancient statues looted in Lebanese war returned decades later
Ancient statues looted in Lebanese war returned decades later
Iran missile barrage sparks explosions over Tel Aviv
- Two near-simultaneous waves of explosions reverberating across the city
- Israel’s emergency services confirms plenty of damage but said there were no casualties
TEL AVIV: The latest Iranian missile barrage sparked a wave of explosions across Tel Aviv as firefighters worked to contain a blaze at a residential building near Israel’s commercial hub on Friday.
The blasts came after Israel expanded its campaign against Hezbollah, vowing retribution against the Tehran-backed militant group for joining the conflict following the killing on Saturday of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s state broadcaster said Tehran had fired missiles “against targets in the heart of Tel Aviv,” after Israel’s military said it was working to intercept incoming Iranian fire late Thursday.
AFP journalists in Tel Aviv heard two near-simultaneous waves of explosions reverberating across the city.
Rocket trails also lit up the sky in Netanya, a city north of Tel Aviv on Israel’s Mediterranean coast.
After the barrage, Israel’s emergency services, the Magen David Adom (MDA), said its teams had visited several reported impact sites but that there were no casualties.
Israeli police said it was “currently handling scenes involving fallen projectiles in central Israel,” adding that there was “damage” but no injuries.
A projectile hit a building on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, forcing residents to evacuate.
At another residential site near Israel’s economic hub, firefighters worked to put out a blaze caused by falling debris after an Iranian rocket fire was intercepted.
Israel’s Home Front Command issues several rocket fire warnings early Friday for communities near the Lebanon border.
