While hiking in the Tabor Stream Nature Reserve at the foot of Tel Rekhesh in the Lower Galilee, a man’s sharp eye caught a sparkling treasure on the ground: a stunning carnelian seal carved in the shape of a scarab beetle. While scarab seals are well known from ancient Egypt, the underside of this seal depicts a griffin, a type of iconography that was more commonly used by the Assyrians. Although the seal was not found in a stratified context, the history of the area suggests it may date to the middle of the first millennium BCE, sometime around the […]
