Middle Bronze II - Iron II Scarabs from Palestine

Abstract

In recent years, Palestinian archaeological teams from local universities and from the Palestinian Authority have intensified systematic archaeological survey and digging works on many sites. Simultaneously, in the period between 1994 and 2014, tourism police have been successful in catching and arresting antiquity dealers, thus confiscating significant amounts of archaeological material. The efforts of the archaeologists and the tourism police have resulted in discovering new inscribed material. These inscribed objects are now located in the stores of the Department of Palestinian Antiquities and Cultural Heritage and were made accessible for study and research.1 This material was recovered by the Bethlehem tourism police in 2008 and in Hebron 2014 from antiquities looters; later on it were brought to the department, recorded, given serial national numbers and archived there. This collection contains twenty-one objects coming from two areas: ten objects from Bethlehem (nine scarabs BL 430, BL 431, BL 434, BL 435, BL 438, BL 439, BL 441, BL 2320, BL 2343, and one scaraboid BL 440), eleven scarabs from Hebron (HB 4306–5314, HB 4316, HB 4468).