Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) admitted on Friday that an allegedly ancient piece of clay pottery bearing an inscription with the name of King Darius the Great, which would have been the first time the sixth century B.C. ruler’s name appeared anywhere in Israel, was not authentic.

News broke last week that Eylon Levy, the international media adviser for Israeli president Isaac Herzog, came across the shard of pottery during a hike in the Tel Lachish national park, where a Canaanite city once stood.

The inscription read “Year 24 of Darius”, which would have dated the find to the year 498 BCE.

Mr Levy, one of a number of British-born immigrants to reach the heart of Israeli power, immediately reported the find to Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) who were intrigued but sceptical of its authenticity, according to reports.

The find appeared to be genuine after the pottery fragment was examined in Israeli labs and found to be 2,500 years old, and Mr Levy wrote on Facebook that he was "contemplating a career conversion to presenter of archaeology documentaries".

Oops. https://t.co/LfPQ2vxWWX

— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) March 3, 2023

However, after the news made headlines around the world, a foreign expert in ancient Aramaic inscriptions approached the Antiquities Authority to explain that she had etched those same words onto an ancient fragment, which are relatively common in the area, last year.

The unnamed expert, who took part in an expedition to the Tel Lachish archaeological site last summer, told officials she had inscribed the words as a demonstration to students about how artefacts were historically inscribed.

The fragment was then abandoned at the site, which is about 25 miles south west of Jerusalem.

The Antiquities Authority admitted the mistake on Friday afternoon. They determined the misidentification had come about “unintentionally and without malice” but described the expert’s choice to leave the item behind on-site as “careless”.

Professor Gideon Avni, chief scientist of the Antiquities Authority, said they took “full responsibility for the unfortunate event.”

“From an ethical-scientific point of view, the incident is very serious. Leaving the engraved address on the site was negligent, and this led to misleading the researchers and disrupting the scientific truth.

“You can count on one hand incidents of this type that happened in archaeological research.”

The body has promised a re-examination of all procedures regarding foreign excavation delegations operating in Israel.

King Darius the Great, who is mentioned repeatedly throughout the Bible, was one of the most famous rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, known as the first incarnation of the Persian Empire. One of his sons, Xerxes I, has been linked to the Persian ruler King Ahasuerus from the story of Purim, though scholars heavily question the story’s accuracy.