A close-up of the scarab – credit Israeli Antiquities Authority

A child in central Israel could have picked up any old stone lying on the ground, but the one she nabbed turned out to be rather more than just an old stone.

Believed to have been brought to modern-day Israel by the Ancient Egyptians, 3-year-old Ziv Nitzan found a scarab amulet that could be 3,800 years old.

Ziv Nitzan with her find – credit Israeli Antiquities Authority

Communicated to the public via a Facebook post, the head of the Israeli Antiquities Authority said it helps connect us to “ancient civilizations that lived in this land thousands of years ago.”

“When she [Ziv] rubbed it and removed the sand from it, we saw something was different about it,” Ziv’s sister Omer Nitzan said in the Facebook post. “I called my parents to come see the beautiful stone, and we realized we had discovered an archaeological find.”

What they found was either an Egyptian or Canaanite scarab, which bears some explaining. The English word scarab doesn’t only mean beetle, but also a culture of functional and decorative sculptural jewelry based on the beetles.

To say an Egyptian official was buried “with a scarab” means he possessed a kind of personalized piece of jewelry.

They often acted as seals—conferring evidence of a bureaucratic, military, or royal position. They were sometimes carved with religious dogma, or even with personal messages.

The carved scarab beetle would sit atop a flat surface on which the inscriptions would be made.

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“Scarabs were used in this period as seals and as amulets. They were found in graves, in public buildings, and in private homes. Sometimes they bear symbols and messages, that reflect religious beliefs or status,” Daphna Ben-Tor, an Egyptologist, said in the Facebook post.

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It’s thought that dung beetles were sacred animals in Ancient Egypt, and that they saw in the Sun’s movement across the sky the work of a celestial dung beetle rolling it along with its back legs. This is perhaps why the scarab beetle family came to be symbolized in their theocracy.

The family made the discovery at an ancient archaeological site called Tel Azekah, the site of the mythical battle between David and Goliath.

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