Four-year-old kid accidentally breaks 3,500-year-old jar in Israel’s museum
Tel Aviv: A 3,500-year-old jar from the Middle Bronze Age, once used for oil and wine in ancient Canaan, was accidentally shattered by a young boy at Israel’s Hecht Museum in Haifa last week. The incident occurred when a 4-year-old curious child, visiting the museum with his family, tried to peer inside the jar, causing it to topple from its metal stand and break into pieces.
The Hecht Museum is known for its practice of displaying priceless archaeological items without glass barriers to enhance visitor experience. “The jar on display at the Hecht Museum, however, was intact, and its size made it an impressive find, positioned at the entrance of the museum,” Dr Inbal Rivlin, the museum’s general director, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday, as mentioned by The New York Times.
The Hecht Museum, part of the University of Haifa, said the pitcher, dating from between 2200 and 1500 B.C., predating the era of King David and his son and successor, King Solomon would be professionally restored in a process that would also be open for the public to watch, according to the report.
Despite the accident, Dr Rivlin noted that the museum will continue to maintain its open-display policy for artefacts. “There are instances where display items are intentionally damaged, and such cases are treated with great severity, including involving the police,” Dr Rivlin said. However, this incident was not intentional, he added. The family, who was not identified, has been invited back for a visit to see the restored piece.
Dr. Reuben Hecht, who passed away in 1993, was an influential Israeli industrialist and philanthropist who donated his extensive collection of Middle Eastern archaeological artefacts and 19th-century paintings to the museum.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
