"These are two Roman ballista balls from Gamla, from a residential quarter at the foot of the summit," the note reads. "I stole them in July 1995, and since then they have brought me nothing but trouble. Please, do not steal antiquities!"
Officials said the stones are now destined for the National Treasures Department.
Danny Syon of the Israel Antiquities Authority welcomed the stones' return.
"Almost 2,000 such stones were found during the archaeological excavations in the Gamla Nature Reserve, and this is the site where there is the largest number of ballista stones from the Early Roman period. The Romans shot these stones at the defenders of the city in order to keep them away from the wall, and in that way they could approach the wall and break it with a battering ram. The stones were manually chiseled on site by soldiers or prisoners."
The antiquities authority said it is not unheard of for stolen treasures to be returned by remorseful thieves -- a 2,000-year-old coffin was returned to the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery by a Tel Aviv man who said he had been keeping the item in his bedroom "until he realized the morbid meaning of the find."
