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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/02/toddler-finds-scarab-artifact-israel/
An Israeli Toddler Picked Up a Rock. It Was a 3,800-Year-Old Artifact
(Washington Post) Vivian Ho - On Feb. 8, Ziv Nitzan, 3, picked up a small, rounded stone along a footpath in southern Israel. She dusted the sand off the stone and asked her mother about its strange markings. Ziv had unearthed a 3,800-year-old amulet from the Middle Bronze Age, a period spanning from 2100 to 1600 BCE, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Tuesday. The tiny ornate object, a scarab, was used in this period as a seal or amulet, said Daphna Ben-Tor, curator for Egyptian archaeology at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem who determined the artifact was genuine. It was found at the foot of Tel Azekah, an ancient hill 40 miles south of Tel Aviv that was once a fortified Judean city. Yoli Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the Antiquities Authority, said children stumble upon artifacts a few times a year. "Sometimes after the rain, the earth is rich with archaeological finds and things come up. We have more than 35,000 archaeological sites in Israel, and those are just the ones that we know of."