Twelve-year-old Dafna Filsteiner recently took a walk at the Nahal Kana antiquities site in Hod Hasharon and discovered an unusual find – an Egyptian scarab amulet, about 3,500 years old.
"I looked in the ground for porcupine thorns and pebbles," she says. "And suddenly I picked up an interesting stone. I showed it to my mom and she said it was just a stone or a bead, but I saw a decoration and I insisted, so we checked online. There, we identified more pictures of stones similar to what we found, realized that it was something special and immediately called the Antiquities Authority."
The family contacted Mor Wiesel, an archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority, who thanked the girl and the family, awarded them a certificate of excellence for good citizenship, and transferred the scarab to the State Treasury at the J. and Ginny Schottenstein National Campus for Archaeology of the Land of Israel.
The finds were examined by Dr. Yitzhak Paz, an expert on the Bronze Age at the Israel Antiquities Authority. It dates back to the New Kingdom period in Egypt, about 3,500 years ago, and two scorpions appear on it, standing head to tail.
According to Dr. Paz, "The symbol of the scorpion was the symbol of the Egyptian goddess Sereket, who is responsible, among other things, for the protection of mothers. Another decoration that appears on the amulet is the nefer symbol, which means "good" or "excellent" in Egyptian.
A scarab is an amulet designed in the shape of a 'dung beetle'. This beetle, which was considered sacred in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, was a symbol of new life, because of the garbage ball it created and laid its eggs in, from which new life hatched. The name in Egyptian is derived from the verb "to be created" or "to be created", because the Egyptians saw the scarab as a symbol of the incarnation of the Creator God. The scarab amulets found in Israel – and sometimes used as a seal – are evidence of Egyptian rule in our region about 3,500 years ago, and its cultural influence on the region.
* Arutz 7 contributed to this article.
