Workers carrying out excavations in northern Israel have uncovered a ‘rare’ marble statue of Hercules, dating from the second century AD, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement Monday.
The statue, which probably stood in a niche, was part of the decoration of a bathhouse pool that was exposed during the course of the excavations, said Dr. Walid Atrash of the IAA.
‘It is c. 0.5 m tall, is made of smoothed white marble and is of exceptional artistic quality,’ he said. ‘Hercules is depicted in three dimension, as a naked figure standing on a base. His bulging muscles stand out prominently, he is leaning on a club to his left, on the upper part of which hangs the skin of the Nemean lion, which according to Greek mythology Hercules slew as the first of his twelve labors.’
Hercules, a hero of both Greek and Roman mythology, was born in Thebes, the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene, a woman from Electryon. He was considered the strongest man in the world, a symbol of power, courage and superhuman strength.
The statue was uncovered at Horvat Tarbenet, a Jewish settlement in the third century AD, located north-west of the modern Israeli city of Afula.
Other remains discovered at the site include a built well, 2.90 metres in diameter and over 4 metres deep, and an installation that included a large pool that was probably part of a Roman bathhouse.
The excavations were carried out as part of the Jezreel Valley Railway Project, the renewal of the historic rail line which once connected the Syrian capital of Damascus with Mediterranean port of Haifa.
The new railway will be about 60 kilometres long and run from Haifa to the Israeli city of Beit Shean, which lies about 8 kilometres west of the Jordan River and about 25 kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee.
(source: DPA)
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