US tourist smashes ancient Roman statues in Jerusalem museum, cops say. He’s arrested
An American tourist toppled several statues inside a museum in Jerusalem, damaging the ancient works of art, Israeli officials said.
The tourist, a 40-year-old man, was apprehended Oct. 5 at the Israel Museum, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and countless other archaeological treasures, according to the Associated Press.
In photos shown by The Times of Israel, two sculptures can be seen lying broken on the ground next to their pedestals.
One appears to be a 2,000-year-old bust of the Greek goddess Athena, per the outlet, and the other seems to be an equally ancient depiction of a griffin, a mythological creature.
“The damaged statues have been moved to the museum’s conservation lab for professional restoration,” a spokesperson for the Israel Museum said in a statement provided to McClatchy News. “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.”
An initial investigation suggests the man, thought to be a Jewish-American “radical,” defaced the statues because he believed they were “idolatrous and contrary to the Torah,” according to the AP.
The man’s attorney, Nick Kaufman, denied he acted out of “iconoclastic fanaticism.”
“His acts prior to the incident and general demeanor suggest that he is suffering from a well recognized condition known as the Jerusalem Syndrome,” Kaufman told McClatchy News in an email.
Jerusalem Syndrome is a psychiatric phenomenon that manifests in some people when visiting Jerusalem, according to the British Journal of Psychiatry.
It’s linked to “religious excitement induced by proximity to the holy places” and can lead people to believe they are characters from religious texts. The unique phenomenon was first documented in the 1980s, and occurrences have increased in the decades since.
The man was sent for a psychiatric evaluation and is expected to be released Oct. 9 from pretrial detention, Kaufman said.
His name has not been released due to a court-mandated gag order, Kaufman said.
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