BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Hercules Statue Found in Northern Israel

Bible and archaeology news

A well-crafted, headless statue depicting the Greco-Roman hero Hercules was found this week during a salvage excavation in northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley. Found at the site of Horvat Tarbenet, the finely sculpted, 1.5-foot-tall, white marble statue shows the muscle-bound Hercules leaning on a club with a lion skin draped over his shoulder. The statue, believed to date to the second century C.E., was unearthed amid the remains of a large pool that was once part of a Roman bathhouse. “This is a rare discovery,” said Dr. Walid Atrash of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “The statue … was part of the decoration of a bathhouse pool … It is of exceptional artistic quality.”

A well-crafted, headless statue depicting the Greco-Roman hero Hercules was found this week during a salvage excavation in northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley.