Good News Notes:

“A couple of weeks ago, a young boy was on a family hiking trip along the HaBesor stream
in southern Israel when he came across an oblong stone that looked different than those around it.

Turns out, it was. The child, 11-year-old Zvi Ben-David, had discovered an ancient figurine that predates the birth of Jesus.

Standing just seven centimeters high, the object depicts a bare-breasted woman with her hands wrapped around her waist. Archeologists estimate the object to be 2,500 years old, dating back to the end of the Iron Age. Only one other object like it has ever been found in Israel. 

Ben-David’s mother, a professional tour guide with an archeologist’s eye, promptly brought the figurine to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Experts identified the artifact as an ancient symbol of fertility.

‘Ceramic figurines of bare-breasted women are known from various periods in Israel, including the First Temple era,’ archaeologist Oren Shmueli and Debbie Ben Ami, an IAA curator of the Iron Age and Persian periods, said in a joint statement. ‘They were common in the home and in everyday life, like the hamsa symbol today, and they apparently served as amulets to ensure protection, good luck, and prosperity.’”

View the whole story here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/11-year-old-boy-found-ancient-iron-age-era-figurine-family-hiking-trip-1950861/amp-page