Gaza Strip farmer unearths 4,500-year-old statue of Canaanite goddess

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A farmer planting his land on the Gaza Strip reaped much more than he sowed.

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A Palestinian farmer found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture that archaeologists believe represents the Canaanite goddess of love and war, the BBC reported.

The sculpture represents the head of Anat, “the goddess of love, beauty and war” in Canaanite mythology, Jamal Abu Rida, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, said in a statement.

The limestone head, which is approximately 6 1/2 inches tall, is estimated to date to 2,500 B.C., ministry officials told the BBC.

Aren Meir, a professor of archaeology at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, was not so sure.

“I don’t recognize the statue as anything I have seen before.” Meir told The Jerusalem Post. “I don’t recognize it so I don’t know what it is. It is hard to say from what period it is,” he said.

Nidal Abu Eid, the farmer who found the statue, said he was working his land as usual in the Qarara area east of Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, NBC News reported.

“We found it by chance. It was muddy and we washed it with water,” Eid told the BBC. “We realized that it was a precious thing, but we didn’t know it was of such great archaeological value.”

The statue of Anat is now on display in Qasr al-Basha, a museum located in the Gaza Strip, the BBC reported.

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