A young girl discovered a 3,500-year-old Egyptian amulet during a family trip near an archaeological site in Hod Hasharon, a city northeast of Tel Aviv. Dafna Filshteiner, 12, was hiking below the ancient site of Tel Qana when she discovered a beetle-like stone.
“I was looking down at the ground to find porcupine needles and smooth pebbles,” she said, when she found the curious-looking stone. She showed to her mother, who said it was nothing.
“But then I saw a decoration and stubbornly insisted it was more than that, so we searched on the internet. There, we identified more photos of stones similar to what we had found. We realized that it was something special and immediately called the Antiquities Authority,” Filshteiner said.
Dafna and her family were awarded a certificate of excellence for good citizenship.
The find, examined by Yitzhak Paz, a Bronze Age expert at the Israel Antiquities Authority, dates from the New Kingdom period in Egypt, between the 16th and 11th centuries BCE.
Two scorpions appear on it, standing head to tail.
“The scorpion symbol represented the Egyptian goddess Serket, who was considered responsible, among other things, for protecting pregnant mothers,” Paz said.
Another decoration on the amulet is the nefer symbol, which in Egyptian means “good” or “chosen.” There is also another symbol that looks like a royal staff, Paz noted.
The amulet, held by 12-year-old Dafna Filshteiner. Photo by Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority.
The scarab is an amulet designed in the shape of a dung beetle. This beetle, considered sacred by ancient Egyptians, was a symbol of new life because it would create a dung ball and lay its eggs in it from which new life hatched.
The Egyptian name derives from the verb “to form,” or “to be created,” as the Egyptians saw the scarab as symbolizing the embodiment of the divine creator.
“The scarab is indeed a distinct Egyptian characteristic, but their wide distribution also reached far beyond Egypt’s borders. It may have been dropped by an important and authoritative figure passing through the area, or it may have been deliberately buried,” said Paz.
The scarab amulets found in Israel—sometimes used as a seal—are evidence of Egyptian rule and cultural influence in the region more than 3,000 years ago.
Tel Qana, which stands near the spot where the scarab was found, is an archaeological site of historic importance.
“This find is both exciting and significant. The scarab and its unique pictorial features, along with other finds discovered at Tel Qana with similar motifs, provide new insights into the nature of the Egyptian influence in the region in general, and the Yarkon area in particular,” said Amit Dagan, from Bar-Ilan University’s Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, and Ayelet Dayan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, who are excavating at the site.
The discovery will be presented to the public in Jerusalem, at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel.
