June 2 (Bloomberg) -- An ancient Jerusalem stone, believed to date back to the city’s rule under the Muslim Umayyad dynasty some 1,200 years ago, was returned to Israel by a tourist from New York who stole it 12 years ago.

The 21-kilogram stone, a fragment of a marble column, was probably part of the official palace complex of the Umayyad Caliphs, the Muslim rulers who built the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa Mosque during their rule from 660 to 750. The stone was returned in a wooden crate. The unidentified person said he regretted the theft and decided to send it back to Israel, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The stone was “discovered during the excavation of one of the Umayyad buildings located south of the Temple Mount,” Yuval Baruch, an archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in an e-mailed statement. “These are four very large structures that extended over an area of 200 dunams (49 acres), which were probably the official palace complex of the Umayyad caliphs about 1,200 years ago.”

The Umayyad dynasty, which held the second Islamic caliphate, reshaped Jerusalem’s landscape of Jewish, Byzantine, and Christian temples by building important Muslim sanctuaries, including the faith’s third holiest site. Excavations carried out by Israel in the 1970s south of the Temple Mount, the center of Jewish faith, uncovered six massive buildings, which most archaeologists link to the Umayyad period.

The stone was taken by the tourist, a student of archaeology at the time, who wanted a souvenir with which to pray for Jerusalem. In a letter attached to the crate returned to Israel, he wrote that “for the past 12 years since then, rather than remind me of the prayer for Jerusalem, I’m reminded of the mistake I made when I removed the stone from its proper place in Israel.”

To contact the reporter on the story: David Wainer in Tel Aviv at dwainer1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 2, 2009 04:15 EDT