Ancient Goddess Sculpture Found by Farmer in Gaza Strip

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat. (Wafa)
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat. (Wafa)
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Ancient Goddess Sculpture Found by Farmer in Gaza Strip

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat. (Wafa)
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat. (Wafa)

A Palestinian farmer found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture while working his land in the southern Gaza Strip, ruling Hamas authorities announced Monday.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat and is estimated to be dated to around 2,500 B.C.

"Anat was the goodness of love, beauty, and war in the Canaanite mythology," said Jamal Abu Rida, the ministry’s director, in a statement.

Gaza, a narrow enclave on the Mediterranean Sea, boasts a trove of antiquities and archaeological sites as it was a major land route connecting ancient civilizations in Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia.

But discovered antiquities frequently disappear and development projects are given priority over the preservation of archaeological sites beneath the urban sprawl needed to accommodate 2.3 million people packed into the densely populated territory.

In 2017, the Hamas movement, which had seized control of the Gaza Strip a decade earlier, destroyed large parts of a rare Canaanite settlement to make way for a housing development for its own employees.

And to date, a life-size statue of the Greek god Apollo that had surfaced in 2013 and then disappeared has yet to be found.

In January, bulldozers digging for an Egyptian-funded housing project unearthed the ruins of a tomb dating back to the Roman era.



Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
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Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)

More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne's city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.

Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.

Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne's biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne's historic center.

As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station.

It also includes three bridges across the Rhine, among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne's central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself.

Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.

The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.