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A Greek Treasure Pulled From The Sea Disappears Again In Gaza

Last year, a Palestinian man fishing off the coast of the Gaza Strip discovered what is thought to be a 2,500-year-old bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo. The rare statue vanished from public view almost immediately after being pulled from the sea. The Hamas government in Gaza says it now has control of the statue.
APA Images/STR
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APA/Landov
Last year, a Palestinian man fishing off the coast of the Gaza Strip discovered what is thought to be a 2,500-year-old bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo. The rare statue vanished from public view almost immediately after being pulled from the sea. The Hamas government in Gaza says it now has control of the statue.

On a sunny Friday in August last year, Judah Abughorab paddled a small, flat boat over the blue Mediterranean Sea about 100 yards off the Gaza Strip's sandy shore.

He doesn't really like to eat fish, but catching them is the unemployed construction worker's favorite pastime.

That day, he netted a half a dozen. Then, through the clear water, he spotted something that made him look again.

"It looked like a person," he says. "Eyes, a face, hands, fingers."

Abughorab says he was scared, but dived 5 yards down to have a closer look. One touch told him the human form was made of metal.

"I realized it was a statue," he says. "I tried to move it, but it was so heavy I thought it was tied to the bottom."

Palestinian fisherman Judah Abughorab, who said he pulled the bronze Apollo statue from the seabed last August, prepares his fishing net on the beach of Deir El-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Feb. 9.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters/Landov
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Reuters/Landov
Palestinian fisherman Judah Abughorab, who said he pulled the bronze Apollo statue from the seabed last August, prepares his fishing net on the beach of Deir El-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Feb. 9.

The impoverished, densely populated Gaza Strip was for centuries a crossroads of many different civilizations. Archaeologists and amateurs have uncovered ancient statues, Greek coins, Roman glass bottles and Byzantine mosaics in Gaza.

The nearly 6-foot-tall, curly-haired bronze that Abughorab hauled from the sea — with the help of half a dozen cousins and a lot of rope — is being touted by the few who have seen it as a real treasure: an ancient statue of the Greek god Apollo.

A donkey cart hauled the find up a sandy cliff to Abughorab's home. The same day, one of his relatives loaded the statue into a tuk-tuk and took it away for safekeeping.

Officials with the Hamas government, which runs the Gaza Strip, say they have Apollo in storage now. Ahmed al-Borsh, director of Gaza's Antiquities Department, hopes this Greek god can help forge ties with Western institutions.

"We want to establish direct connections with official institutions who share our aim of protecting the statue," he says.

"Direct connections" is the key phrase for Hamas. Considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, Hamas hopes interest in preserving this apparent rare find could crack the door of isolation.

"If it's not restored in the right way, it will be destroyed," says Borsh. "I don't think they will find another Apollo."

Fadel al-Otol is an archaeologist and restoration expert in Gaza who is worried that the Apollo statue is being kept under conditions that will cause it to deteriorate. He is critical of Hamas' decision to hide the statue from public view so far.
/ APA/Landov
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APA/Landov
Fadel al-Otol is an archaeologist and restoration expert in Gaza who is worried that the Apollo statue is being kept under conditions that will cause it to deteriorate. He is critical of Hamas' decision to hide the statue from public view so far.

Last year, top Hamas officials expressed interest in getting the organization off Western blacklists. Borsh hopes cultural delegations might now travel to Gaza to see Apollo, laying groundwork for future international relationships. He says the Louvre has expressed interest in helping restore the statue, something a Louvre spokesperson denies.

The Gazan government is handing out photos of Apollo and promising to show the real thing soon. Wealthy Gazan antiquities collector Jhoudat Khodary says he has seen a video of the god statue pulled from the sea. He couldn't sleep that night, he says.

"What a beauty, what a treasure, what good luck," Khodary says. "So happy that such an important statue was found in Gaza."

He hedges on whether the statue was for sale at that time, but he says he did not buy it. Gazan archaeologist and restoration expert Fadel al-Otol worries the statue will deteriorate if it's not stored soon in carefully regulated conditions. But he says dreams of Apollo helping Hamas are far-fetched right now.

"It is impossible that the statue will give the government political connections at this point. They haven't even shown Apollo," Otol says. "They are just talking about it, and that won't get them anywhere."

Photos of Apollo show a splotchy brown and green statue missing its left eye, two fingers and a thumb. Abughorab, the man who found it, says he knocked off one of Apollo's fingers with a 5-pound hammer soon after getting it home.

"It had a certain shine, so we thought we should find out what kind of metal it was before doing anything else," he says.

The Hamas government says the finger was melted. The fisherman says it's back with Apollo. Abughorab doesn't want the finger, he says, but is hoping for a substantial reward.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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International Correspondent Emily Harris is based in Jerusalem as part of NPR's Mideast team. Her post covers news related to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She began this role in March of 2013.