Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed three 1,500-year-old Christian burials that contain very rare figurines crafted from ebony and bone and depict people from Africa.
The figurines — which were likely worn as pendants — might depict these individuals' ancestors, researchers wrote in a new study, which was published in the most recent 2025 issue of the journal 'Atiqot. It's possible that the buried individuals or their ancestors were Africans who had converted to Christianity and then moved to the Negev, the researchers wrote.
