A 3-year-old girl on a family walk picked up an interesting-looking pebble that turned out to be a 3,800-year-old amulet.
The Canaanite scarab amulet, which dates to the Middle Bronze Age, was camouflaged among a the gravel on a path nearby an archaeology site in Israel.
The find was reported and will now go on display in a special exhibition.
Children are always picking stuff up off the ground—dirt, bugs, rocks, anything shiny. And usually, it’s just junk. However, 3-year-old Ziv Nitzan made the discovery of her young life when, on a walk with her family, she picked up a small stone that wound up being a scarab amulet more than one thousand times her age.
“We were walking along the path, and then Ziv bent down and out of all the stones around her, she picked up this particular stone,” Omer Nitzan, Ziv’s sister, said in a translated statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority. “When she rubbed it and removed the sand from it, we saw something was different about it. I called my parents to come see the beautiful stone, and we realized we had discovered an archaeological find.”
The family brought in the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Daphna Ben-Tor, an expert in ancient amulets and seals, analyzed the amulet before declaring it a 3,800-year-old Canaanite scarab from the Middle Bronze Age. “Scarabs were used in this period as seals and as amulets,” Ben-Tor said, “They were found in graves, in public buildings, and in private homes. Sometimes they bear symbols and messages that reflect religious beliefs or status.”
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Nitzan found the scarab at the foot of Tel Azeka, an archaeological mound near Beit Shemesh. Previous excavations in the area have revealed an ever-shifting mix of cultures across the site’s history, from a Judahite Kingdom that featured city walls and agricultural installations to the possible site of the Biblical battle between David and Goliath found in the book of First Samuel.
Unlike the archaeologists that have dug up the site over the years, Ziv needed no formal training for her find. Omer said in a translated video statement that out of the 70,000 stones around Ziv, she picked up the one that was an amulet and “saw that something was different about it.”
“We have been excavating here for almost 15 years,” Oded Lipschits, professor and director of the Tel Aviv University archeological dig at the site, said in a statement, “and the excavation findings show that during the Middle Bronze and Late Bronze ages, here in Tel Azekah, thrived one of the most important cities in the Judean lowlands. The scarab found by Ziv joins a long list of Egyptian and Canaanite finds discovered here, which attest to the close ties and cultural influences between Canaan and Egypt during that period.”
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Lipschits said that the locally made artifact found by Ziv was inspired by Egyptian styles.
Amichai Eliyahu, Israeli Minister of Heritage, said Ziv’s find and the family’s reporting of it deepens connections to ancient civilizations. “Thanks to her, everyone will be able to see it and enjoy it,” he said.
The scarab now joins additional artifacts from the era for a special public display at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in honor of Passover. Many of the items will be shown for the first time, including seals of pharaohs, Egyptian statues, ritual vessels, and now a scarab amulet discovered by an enthralled 3-year-old.
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Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.