12-year-old girl discovers 3,500-year-old Egyptian amulet in central Israel

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the discovery of a 3,500-year-old Egyptian scarab amulet, found by 12-year-old Dafna Filshteiner while she was hiking with her family near Hod Hasharon in central Israel.

For reporting her discovery, Dafna received a “certificate of excellence for good citizenship.”

While hiking in Tel Qana with her family, Dafna noticed the amulet while “looking down at the ground to find porcupine needles and smooth pebbles,” she said.

“Suddenly, I picked up an interesting stone,” she continued. “I showed it to my mother, and she said it was just an ordinary stone or 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 Antiquities Authority.”

The IAA press release stated that the amulet was examined by Bronze Age expert Dr. Yitzhak Paz, who determined that it dates back approximately 3,500 years to Egypt’s New Kingdom period (circa 1550 –1070 B.C.E.)

The scarab amulet contains the images of two scorpions, a “nefer” hieroglyph (meaning “good” or “chosen”), along with a “symbol which looks like a royal staff.”

Paz noted that “the scorpion symbol represented the Egyptian goddess Serket, who was considered responsible, among other things, for protecting pregnant mothers.”

Highlighting the significance of the find, Paz said that the "wide distribution" of such scarabs "reached far beyond Egypt’s borders,” suggesting, “it may have been dropped by an important and authoritative figure passing through the area, or it may have been deliberately buried.”

The IAA highlighted that the discovery is evidence of ancient Egyptian rule over what later became the land of Israel.

The scarab is now being showcased at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem.