While on a family hike, a child stumbled upon a 3,800-year-old Egyptian amulet. It will be featured in an upcoming exhibition.
Recently, a three-year-old child from Israel made an important archaeological discovery.
The child, Ziv Nitzan, was walking with her family on a dirt trail about 25 miles outside Jerusalem last month when a small rock caught her eye. She was drawn to it, she said in an interview translated from Hebrew by her mother, because “it had teeth on it.”
Naturally, Ziv picked it up. When she wiped away the dirt, “she noticed it was something very special,” said her mother, Sivan Nitzan.
According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, which later took it back, the eye-catching stone turned out to be a 3,800-year-old Egyptian amulet engraved with a drawing of an insect known as a scarab and dating back to the Bronze Age.
It was not the first time the young tourist had stumbled upon an archaeological treasure in Israel, given its rich history.
Last year, a 13-year-old boy found a Roman-era ring engraved with the goddess Minerva while hiking on Mount Carmel in Haifa. In 2016, a 7-year-old boy discovered a well-preserved 3,400-year-old carving of a naked woman while on a trip with friends to the Beit Shean Valley. And many eagle-eyed children have unearthed coins minted during the Roman or Hasmonean periods.
