There's a story that the remains of the Colossus of Rhodes was sold to a Jewish merchant, who basically hauled it away for scrap. Did this really happen? If so, do we know anything about this merchant or what he might have done with the remains? If not, do we know what actually happened?
It is likely that never happened, as all other sources of this statement can be traced back to The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, who stated that an invading Muslim army tore down the statue, cast it down and sold it to a Jewish merchant of Edessa who loaded the bronze on 900 camel but in all likely hood it most likely was none existing at that stage of time due to an earthquake in 226 BC, where the statue snapped at the knees and fell over onto the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but the oracle of Delphi made the Rhodians afraid that they had offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it.
The tale of the Jew and Muslim army destroying it possibly originated as a metaphor for Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the destruction of a great statue, and may have been seen have as evidence for the coming apocalypse.
Source: The Arabs and the Colossus. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3rd ser. L.I. Conrad.