Archaeologists excavating near the coastal town of Binyamina recently unearthed two remarkably well-preserved marble busts from the ancient Roman period, hidden face-down in the pit of an ancient winepress, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday.

The 1,700-year-old statues, possibly depicting prominent figures from the Greco-Roman world, may have been hidden due to fears that early Christians would destroy them, researchers said. The artifacts will be on public display at Tel Aviv’s MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum beginning this week.

The discovery of the two protomes – sculpted heads and upper torsos from the Roman period – was made three weeks ago, on the last day of an excavation funded by Israel Railways as part of a massive infrastructure project designed to double the coastal rail line between Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The project, known as the High-Speed Coastal Railway, will eventually allow trains to travel at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour and cut travel times between the two cities to about 30 minutes, IAA noted. Like many large construction projects in Israel, the railway expansion required extensive archaeological investigations before work could proceed.

The excavation uncovered a sprawling Byzantine-era wine-production complex with treading floors, filtration basins and collection pits for fermenting grape juice, Eliran Oren, one of the excavation’s directors, told The Times of Israel.

“We found the types of things that we would normally find in a site like this: jars, coins strewn around, pieces of glass and metal,” said Oren, who directed the dig along with Avishag Reiss. “But on the last day of the dig, we found this very big surprise. The really big discoveries always turn up on the last day.”

The statues stand about 55 centimeters (22 inches) tall and weigh roughly 60 kilograms (132 pounds) each, Oren noted.

When workers told archaeologist Michael Sorotskin that they saw something sticking out of the ground, “there was a feeling that we were about to discover something that really shouldn’t be there,”........

© The Times of Israel