A young boy who accidentally broke a rare 3,500-year-old jar in an Israeli museum has been invited back.

Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his -four-year-old son is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash last Friday, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.

“He’s not a kid that usually destroys things, he just wanted to see what was inside,” Geller told The ᴀssociated Press.

The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glᴀss barriers, said Inbar Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is ᴀssociated with Haifa University in northern Israel.

Rivlin said the jar was displayed at the museum entrance, and that the family quickly left without finishing their visit. She wants to use the restoration as an educational opportunity and make sure they feel welcome to return.

Geller and his family live in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, just a few kilometers (miles) south of the border with Lebanon, in an area that has come under Hezbollah rocket fire for more than 10 months in a conflict linked to the war in Gaza.

They were spending the summer break visiting museums and taking day trips around Israel to escape the tensions, Geller said.

There were a lot of kids at the museum that day, and Geller said he fervently prayed the damage had been caused by someone else. When he turned around and saw it was his son, he was “in complete shock.”

“My wife responded faster than me, she grabbed our son to take him outside and calm him down and explain that it was not OK what had happened,” said Geller.

He went over to the security guards to let them know what had happened in hopes that it was a model and not a real artifact.

“We said, if we need to pay we will, whatever will be will be. But they called and said it was insured and after they checked the cameras and saw it wasn’t vandalism they invited us back for a make-up visit.”