Featured Image Credit: Pen News
Topics: World News
Poppy Bilderbeck
A cursed tomb has been discovered in the Holy Land with an eery warning written to anyone who attempts to open it.
Archaeologists stumbled across the tomb in Beit She'arim, Israel, in a newly uncovered cave within an ancient cemetery.
The tomb is the first to be be discovered at the UNESCO World Heritage Site for 65 years.
Almost as terrifying as when Aladdin stumbled across the cave of wonders - and stupidly decided to go inside and take the golden lamp despite the warnings - the tomb was discovered with an inscribed curse, cautioning people from trying to enter.
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The painted blood-red warning states: “Yaakov Ha’Ger vows to curse anybody who would open this grave, so nobody will open it. 60 years old.”
One of the archaeologists from the University of Haifa, Adi Erlich, explained that the curse was written in a bid to make sure the resting place of the dead man inside remains eternal.
She said: "It was to prevent others from opening the tomb at a later point, which happened quite often - re-using tombs through time."
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The team noted how significant the finding was due to it being the first ever tomb within the site to explicitly identify a dead person as a convert.
The name 'Yaakov Ha'Ger' translates to Jacob the proselyte, which refers to a convert to Judaism. And the group believe the transcription was marked onto the grave eighteen hundred years ago.
Professor Erlich reflected: "The inscription is from the late Roman or early Byzantine period, in which Christianity was strengthened. And here we find evidence that there are still people who choose to join the Jewish people.
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"We know of converts in the Roman period mostly from funerary contexts, such as first-century AD Jerusalem, or third to fourth-century AD Rome. But this is the first proselyte from Beit She'arim, and they are not well attested from that time in Galilee. So this is real news."
The original cave was discovered a year ago, however smaller caves within have only been uncovered more recently.
Despite the finding - and unlike Aladdin - the team of archaeologists aren't tempted to open up the tomb.
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Instead they have chosen to abide by the dead man's wishes.
Professor Erlich noted: "We just took care of the inscription and blocked the cave to keep it safe for the time being.
"No excavations are planned at the moment."
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) now have possession of the curse inscription and it is reported there could be plans for it to be potentially put up on display.
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