Rare 1,800-Year-Old Sarcophagus Recovered in Israel

 

This is what happens when states have aggressively confiscatory laws:

Israeli authorities have recovered an impressive Roman-era sarcophagus that construction workers tried to conceal after stumbling upon it at a building site, Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Thursday. The 1,800-year-old stone coffin, which the IAA describes as one of the most important and beautiful ever discovered in the country, is sculpted on all sides, weighs two tons and is 2.5 meters (8 feet) long. A life-sized figure of a person is carved on the lid. The sarcophagus was [...]  severely damaged when building contractors improperly removed it from the ground. “They decided to hide it, pulled it out of the ground with a tractor while aggressively damaging it,” the IAA wrote in a statement. The sarcophagus was then hidden beneath a stack of sheet metal and boards. “The contractors poured a concrete floor in the lot so as to conceal any evidence of the existence of the antiquities site,” the IAA said.

More here.