The brightly painted relic, decorated with 17 images of animals and birds, was found in the Bureij refugee camp, just a kilometer from the Israeli border, by Palestinian farmer Salman al-Nabahin and his son while they were planting an olive tree.

The Art Newspaper writes about it.

Parts of the mosaic were damaged by the roots of old olive trees.

They covered the excavated pieces with sheet metal and reported the find to the local authorities.

Photo: Associated Press

Experts have called the find one of the biggest archaeological treasures ever found in Gaza.

"This is a fascinating find, especially since our knowledge of this industry is unfortunately very poor given the circumstances of the place. Gaza was very important during the period of this mosaic and was also famous for its growing wine production, which was exported through Mediterranean," explained archaeologist Asa Eger from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Photo: Associated Press

Archaeologist René Elter of the French School of Biblical Archeology in Jerusalem said the mosaic was "exceptional".

"These are the most beautiful mosaic floors found in Gaza, both in terms of the quality of the graphic image and the complexity of the geometry," he said.

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern part of the Roman Empire, whose history dates back to 330 AD.

It existed for more than a thousand years and was Orthodox in recent centuries.

It was destroyed by the Ottomans in the 15th century.

Earlier it became known that in

And on the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists found the ruins of an ancient Mayan city.

It was discovered at the construction site of the future industrial park.

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• In France, a family found a box of gold coins in a wall during renovations: that was the end of it all