Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Unauthorized West Bank antiquity confiscation?

DETAINED DECORATIVE ARCHITECTURE: High-ranking Israeli Police Officer Entered West Bank Village With IDF Troops to Seize Ancient Stone. Meir Rotter, head of the police's ultra-Orthodox community department, confiscated a carved lintel from a home in Kafr Dhaba without Civil Administration archaeologists present and in an area under Palestinian Authority control; police say the incident will be investigated (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

There is a video of the stone fragment, which an excerpted photo describes as a "carved lintel." You can see the mentioned menorah design and some floral/vine decoration. The second fragment to the left is harder to see, but it looks like it has more floral/vine decoration. I don't know how old they are.

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