A tourist from the United States was arrested by security officials on Thursday for allegedly destroying statues inside the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The tourist claimed that those statues offended his religious sensibilities.
The Jerusalem Post reported that police said in their statement that officers were called to the site on Thursday evening after a visitor to the museum intentionally smashed and extensively damaged several sculptures.
The news portal further reported that the photos released by authorities showed two sculptures that had been knocked off of pedestals and broken into several pieces in the museum's archaeology wing. The pieces appeared to be a head of Athena from the 2nd century CE discovered in 1978 in Tel Naharon near Beit She'an, and a statue of a griffin holding a wheel of fate representing the Roman god Nemesis dated to 210-211 CE and discovered in 1957 in the northern Negev.
The Israel Museum said only that the two destroyed artifacts were "ancient Roman statues dating to the 2nd century CE" which were featured in the archaeology wing.
The arrested US tourist remains in custody and will appear in court in Jerusalem. Israel is currently seeing a surge in tourists for the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The Israel Museum told Metro News in statement: 'The museum's management, which views this as a troubling and unusual event, condemns all forms of violence and hopes such incidents will not recur.
'During the weekend, the museum will maintain its regular opening hours.'
