Child’s hunt leads to discovery of rare 1,700-year-old relic

A young Israeli boy who was on a weekend rock hunt wound up making a huge archeological discovery that’s since gone viral across the world.

The discovery happened on May 11 as Dor Wolynitz, 8, was visiting Israel’s Roman Crater with his father, according to The Times of Israel.

At one point, he picked up a strange-looking striped stone that’s since been identified as a 1,700-year-old Roman statuette fragment.

8-year-old boy finds 1,700-year-old Roman statuette during a show-and-tell hunt | Fox News https://t.co/NxnZp4qEMw

— Ceil Harben (@charben13) May 25, 2026

“I was looking for special things on the ground that I could show in class,” Wolynitz said in a statement published by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). “Suddenly, I noticed an interesting stone with stripes lying on the ground, and picked it up.”

“It seemed like an unusual object to me, so I showed it to Akiva [Goldenhersh], an archaeologist and my dad’s friend, who was with us on our trip,” he added.

Measuring six by six centimeters, the fragment depicted “part of a human figure with carefully sculpted folds of fabric,” Goldenhersh said in a statement.

“At first I thought it was a fossil, but then I noticed the sculpted folds of the garment – and I was very excited!” he added.

Goldenhersh then shared the object with IAA geologist Dr. Nimrod Wieler, who quickly determined that the fragment “was made of local stone, a light mineral of the phosphorite type, commonly found in the Negev desert,” according to the Times.

“Being made of local material reasonably indicates the statuette was made in Israel and not imported,” Goldenhersh noted. “The figure is depicted wearing a type of heavy mantle called a himation, with no visible chiton, or undergarment. The manner of sculpting the folds and the choice of such a delicate material indicate a very high level of skill on the part of the artist.”

He stressed, however, that it would be difficult to determine who exactly the original statuette was designed to portray.

“Stylistically, it might be of the god Jupiter, or Zeus-Dushara, a Nabatean god who was identified and merged with Zeus in the context of the encounter between the Nabatean culture that was widespread in the Negev region, and the Hellenistic-Roman world,” he said. “This tiny find thus reflects the combination of local traditions with influences from the classical world.”

He concluded his remarks by stressing the importance of handing over the fragment to the IAA.

“Every archaeological find is part of our joint heritage in this land,” he said. “Handing it over to the National Treasures [collection] allows us to study it, preserve it, and make the knowledge accessible to the general public.”

According to Fox News, Wolynitz received a certificate from IAA for his “good citizenship.”

“The responsible conduct of Dor and his family is an example of proper civic responsibility and the preservation of our country’s cultural assets,” Goldenhersh said. “Dor is a role model for us all.”

A few weeks after Wolynitz’s discovery, another unexpected discovery happened on a sunny beach in Spain, where a construction crew stumbled on the find of a lifetime.

“Workers digging along Almadraba beach in Alicante got more than they bargained for when a routine regeneration project unearthed what looked like a harmless chunk of stone — and turned out to be a 2,000-year-old marble Roman bust in shockingly pristine condition,” the New York Post reported.

It’s believed the stone came from a statue of the goddess Venus.

Ancient Roman bust in pristine condition discovered during Spanish beach dig https://t.co/jAsQE4JI8a pic.twitter.com/maMyowodRR

— New York Post (@nypost) May 21, 2026

According to the Greek City Times, it’s suspected that the statue used to be in the home of a prominent Roman citizen.

“The discovery was made during mandatory archaeological excavations in an area already known to contain remains of a Roman villa,” the Times notes. “Experts believe the bust dates to the 1st or 2nd century AD, during the golden age of the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus.”

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