Twelve-year-old Dafna Filshteiner was hiking with her family near the site of Tel Qana, in Hod Hasharon (northeast of Tel Aviv). While trying to find “porcupine needles and smooth pebbles,” she happened across something much more impressive. “Suddenly I picked up an interesting stone,” she recounts. “I found it while it was upside down. My mother thought it was just a bead. 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 Israel Antiquities Authority [iaa].”
The find—an Egyptian scarab—was examined by iaa Bronze Age expert Dr. Yitzhak Paz. According to him, the discovery dates back to around 3,500 years to Egypt’s New Kingdom Period.
The amulet depicts two scorpions standing head to tail. “The scorpion symbol represented the Egyptian goddess Serket, who was considered responsible, among other things, for protecting pregnant mothers,” Dr. Paz explained in a press release issued this week. “Another decoration on the amulet is the nefer symbol, which in Egyptian means ‘good’ or ‘chosen.’ There is also another symbol which looks like a royal staff.”
Amulets such as this are known as scarabs and are designed in the shape of a dung beetle. In Egyptian mythology, the dung beetle is sacred and symbolizes “new life”: Within the dung they roll, they lay their eggs and their young emerge.
Numerous scarab amulets have been discovered in Israel, providing a picture of Egyptian influence into the region during the New Kingdom Period. Although distinctly Egyptian, “since the find was discovered on the surface, it is difficult to know its exact context,” says Paz.
Bar-Ilan University’s Dr. Amit Dagan and the iaa’s Dr. Ayelet Dayan are conducting an archaeological excavation at the nearby Tel Qana. In the press release, they noted that “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.”
Iaa director Eli Eskosido concluded: “Dafna received a certificate of appreciation from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and now the scarab she found is on display in Jerusalem at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, so the entire public can enjoy it. Everyone is welcome to come and visit!”
