At the bottom of a mountaintop in the Lower Galilee, once home to the city known as Tel Rekhesh, an Israeli hiker recently found a biblical-era amulet with a depiction of a scarab. Gavriel Fiske reports:
The scarab, made from reddish-brown carnelian stone, is estimated to be 2,800 years old and of Assyrian or Babylonian origin. The front is carved in the shape of a beetle, and the back has engravings that depict a griffon or a winged horse, a common motif of the Ancient Near East.
During the 6th and 7th centuries BCE, “a large citadel stood at the top of the mount, where bathing facilities, halls, and ritual chambers were found from the period of Assyrian rule. This rule, as we know, was responsible for the destruction of the kingdom of Israel” in the First Temple period, the Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yitzhak Paz explained.
The scarab is likely from this period of Assyrian control and “may indicate the presence of Assyrian (or perhaps Babylonian) officials at Tel Rekhesh during this period,” Paz added. If the scarab can be conclusively dated and this connection proven, it will be a discovery of “great significance,” he said.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/galilee-hiker-stumbles-upon-2800-year-old-assyrian-scarab-seal/