Overview
- The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery on Monday, June 15, 2026, after archaeologists uncovered the two complete marble portrait statues during a salvage dig for the Coastal Railway expansion.
- The statues date to the late Roman period, are unusually well preserved for the region, and were found deliberately placed face down inside a wine‑collection pit of a disused Roman‑Byzantine winepress.
- One bust carries a Greek inscription reading “Lycurgus,” a name that could reference different historical figures and that specialists say requires careful study before any identification is confirmed.
- The artifacts have been moved to laboratories for cleaning and conservation and will be shown first to scholars at the Center VII conference on June 18, 2026, with a public museum display planned for the summer.
- Researchers say the statues likely decorated a public building or elite residence and are testing hypotheses that they came from a nearby bathhouse, a wealthy villa, or were transported from Caesarea about 10 kilometers away, highlighting how rescue digs tied to infrastructure projects can reveal rare finds.