12-year-old girl finds ancient Egyptian amulet in Israel

A 12-year-old girl’s family trip led to the extraordinary discovery of an ancient item dating back approximately 3,500 years.

A girl named Dafna Filshteiner was on a hiking trip with her family near the archaeological site of Tel Qana in Hod Hasharon, Israel, when she discovered her finding, the Israel Antitiquities Authority said in a press release. 

“I was looking down at the ground to find porcupine needles and smooth pebbles,” Filshteiner said per the press release. “And suddenly I picked up an interesting stone. 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.” 

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What the young girl found turned out to be an Egyptian amulet dating back to the New Kingdom period, about 3,500 years ago. 

The amulet took the shape of a dung beetle, which was sacred in Ancient Egypt as a symbol of new life, per the press release. 

“The scarab is indeed a distinct Egyptian characteristic, but their wide distribution also reached far beyond Egypt’s borders. It may have been dropped by an important and authoritative figure passing through the area, or it may have been deliberately buried. Since the find was discovered on the surface, it is difficult to know its exact context,” Dr. Yitzhak Paz, a Bronze Age expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority who further examined the find, said per the press release. 

Clearly displayed on the beetle-shaped amulet were two scorpions, which Paz said “represented the Egyptian goddess Serket, who was considered responsible, among other things, for protecting pregnant mothers. Another decoration on the amulet is the nefer symbol, which in Egyptian means ‘good’ or ‘chosen’. There is also another symbol which looks like a royal staff.” 

Filshteiner received a certificate of good citizenship for reporting the ancient find. 

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“Dafna received a certificate of appreciation from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and now the scarab she found is on display in Jerusalem at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, so the entire public can enjoy it,” Eli Escusido, Israel Antiquities Authority director, said according the press release. “Everyone is welcome to come and visit!”

Filshteiner’s story is one of many that shows that remarkable finds do not always come out of archaeological excavations. Sometimes, it is young finders who make impressive discoveries. 

Another similar example came out of England, where a 9-year-old boy found a shiny rock while at the beach. 

The rock he found turned out to be a hand axe from the late Middle Paleolithic period, dating back between 40,000 and 60,000 years, the Worthing Musuem announced in November 2024.  

“We regularly have visitors bring in their finds from the local area. Mostly these are other flint tools or Roman artifacts, but this is by far the oldest item shown to myself in 10-plus years,” James Sainsbury, curator of archaeology at Worthing Museum, previously told Fox News Digital in an email. 

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“Neanderthal hand axes are rare in Sussex,” Sainsbury also said. “This is the first to be found in years. The nature of the find, being made by a young local boy on the beach, makes it doubly special.”

Also in England, a 12-year-old boy and his mom were walking their dog in West Sussex in 2022 when they found a gold bracelet.

They took the item to a local finds liaison officer, and were told that they had found a piece of ancient Roman jewelry.