An Ancient Scarab Amulet

CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS picking stuff up off the ground—usually junk. But sometimes, they can find real treasure.

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On a walk with her family, 3-year-old Ziv Nitzan made the discovery of her life when she picked up a stone that wound up being a scarab amulet more than 1,000 times her age.

“We were walking along the path, and then Ziv bent down, and out of all the stones around her, she picked up this particular stone,” Omer Nitzan, Ziv’s sister, said in a translated statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority. “When she rubbed it and removed the sand from it, we saw something was different about it. I called my parents to come see the beautiful stone, and we realized we had discovered an archaeological find.”