Sometimes Mother Nature can be her own archaeologist.
A 2,000-year-old white marble statue was revealed at the site of Ashkelon last December when a powerful winter storm pounded Israel’s coast with heavy winds and rains and massive waves. As the storm ravaged the shoreline of the ancient port city, a portion of a 30-foot-high cliff face overlooking the site’s modern beach gave way. The long-buried statue—and a host of other ancient remains—tumbled into the sea. Fortunately, Nehemiah Inbar, a longtime Ashkelon resident, noticed the statue amid the waves while surveying the damage caused by the storm and notified the authorities.1
The nearly 4-foot-tall statue, found without its head or hands, portrays a woman in a long, loose-fitting, beautifully draped toga and wearing detailed sandals as she leans against a square pillar. Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) believe the statue may depict the goddess Aphrodite who, fittingly enough, was herself thought to have been born of the waves of the sea. While it is uncertain how and when the statue lost its head and limbs, the other finds from the cliff’s collapse, including architectural and mosaic fragments, suggest the marble, likely an import from Italy or Asia Minor, may have originally adorned a Roman bathhouse that overlooked Ashkelon’s ancient shores.
During the Roman period (63 B.C.E.–330 C.E.), Ashkelon was a vibrant, bustling seaport that imported precious commodities from across the Mediterranean world, including fine ceramics from Greece and large quantities of wine from Rhodes and Italy. Excavations at the site have also uncovered traces of the city’s theater, several monumental colonnaded buildings and a number of well-adorned private villas.a
Despite the remarkable find at Ashkelon, the storm’s 60-mile-per-hour winds and towering 40-foot waves ravaged several major archaeological sites along Israel’s coast, including the ancient port city of Caesarea Maritima.b019In what IAA director Shuka Dorfman called a “national disaster,” the storm caused severe damage to Caesarea’s Roman- and Crusader-period remains, including the monumental aqueduct first built by Herod the Great to supply the city with fresh water. As seen in photographs from before and after the storm, the stone foundations of the arches supporting the aqueduct were undermined and partially destroyed in places, leaving ancient building stones scattered along the beach.
Even more worrisome was the damage caused to the offshore breakwaters that were built in the 1950s to protect the site from storms and coastal erosion. The storm’s powerful winds and waves broke the cement barrier into three pieces. If the break-waters are not repaired, officials warn, Israel’s next major winter storm could cause even more of Caesarea’s remains to slip into the sea.
Sometimes Mother Nature can be her own archaeologist.
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