Ahmed Nasser Yassin, an Israeli Arab electrician from Arraba, a town in the Lower Galilee, was driving his truck last weekend on a dirt road above his village, on his way to a client’s home, when he recognized “something out of the ordinary on the side of the mountain.”
“I stopped to check what it was, the rock crumbled, and before my eyes were revealed ancient-looking artifacts,” Yassin said.
He carefully collected the findings and took them to his home, where he contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority.
IAA representative Nir Distelfeld rushed to the scene and received from Yassin the exciting findings which will be transferred to the state treasury.
“The artifacts appear to have been exposed as a result of previous damage by some mechanical tool to an ancient burial cave,” Distelfeld explained. “These are ritual artifacts dated to the interim bronze age, some 4,500 years ago, which were placed inside the burial cave along with the dead buried in it, to accompany and serve the dead in the Hereafter – something that was common at the time.”
The artifacts Yassin found are collection and storage jars, as well as pouring tools. The outline of the vessels is characteristic of the pottery vessels of that period in northern Israel.
Along with the pottery, there is also a copper dagger blade, which was originally attached with rivets to a wooden handle.
According to Distelfeld, “this is the typical weapon of the age, and it was common to leave the weapons in the burial places of their departed owners.”
Distelfeld thanked Yassin for his good citizenship, adding that the burial cave discovered by Yassin by chance “revealed to us a period that was unknown in digs in this area, so that in his responsible decision he contributed to the archaeological mosaic of the Land of Israel.”