Ramallah: Palestinian Police have seized 900 historical artefacts that smugglers were attempting to take abroad and arrested a Palestinian suspect from occupied East Jerusalem who was leaving with the artefacts.
“The Palestinian Police stopped more than 900 Islamic, Byzantine, and Romanian artefacts from leaving the country,” said an official statement issued by the Palestinian Police.
The statement said that the Tourist and Antiques Police was tipped off about a Palestinian national from occupied East Jerusalem who was moving hundreds of rare artefacts from the city of Bethlehem to smuggle them abroad.
A huge Palestinian police force moved to the scene and arrested the suspect and seized the artefacts before they left the Palestinian territories. The statement said that the Palestinian police foiled the operation at the last moment and when the artefacts were reviewed, it was concluded that the operation was one of the biggest smuggling operations in recent Palestinian history.
The police statement said that the seized artefacts included ancient coins, rare pottery pieces which dated back to early eras such as the Canaanites. The seized artefacts also included a pottery plate dating back to the classical era which had images of women holding torches as well as an ancient casket.
Palestinian historians and antiques experts said that the casket, which is 75 centimetres long, 53 centimetres width and 38 centimetres high, was about 3,500 years old and belonged to the Roman era. The experts said that the bones of the dead were put in caskets as per their religious beliefs. The experts said that the casket manifested the burial process during the Roman era and is of great historical value. They concluded that a lot of Palestinian heritage would have been lost in the event the smuggler had been successful in getting out of the Palestinian territories with those artefacts.
