The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has moved a man who stole a 2,000 year old artefact back to a national park in Jerusalem because he felt ‘the end of the world is near’.

With the potential of the apocalypse on his mind, an anonymous man has returned an ancient Roman ballista stone – similar to a cannonball that goes in a gigantic crossbow – to the Jerusalem Walls National Park in the City of David.

He did this 15 years after he stole the 2,000 year old stone as he felt ‘the time has come to clear my conscience; it feels that the end of the world is near’.

Well, it’s perhaps not that bad, but it’s a nice gesture of repentance, either way.

This discovery was unearthed – if you’ll forgive that shamelessly awful pun – by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) after a man called Moshe Manies took it upon himself to act as a conduit between the unnamed man and the IAA.

On Facebook, Manies said that the theft of the ancient ballista stone “involved two ‘shababniks’ (rebellious youths), who, 15 years earlier, toured at the City of David site and came across a display of ballista stones which were catapulted at fortifications,”

He explained: “One of the boys took one of the stones home. Meanwhile, he married and raised a family, and told me that for the past 15 years the stone is weighing heavily on his heart.

“And now, when he came across it while cleaning for Passover, together with the apocalyptic feeling the Coronavirus generated, he felt the time was ripe to clear his conscience, and he asked me to help him return it to the Israel Antiquities Authority.”

source ladbible.com