Yair Whiteson, 13, from Haifa, went hiking with his reservist father near the ancient quarry below Mishmar HaCarmel Farm (Khirbet Shalala) on Mount Carmel and found an intriguing object.
“I noticed a small green item and picked it up,” Yair recalled. “It was rusted, and at first, I thought it was just a rusty bolt. I thought about heating it, but then, fortunately, I realized it was a ring. At home, I saw it had an image on it. At first glance, I thought it was a warrior.”
The family contacted Nir Distelfeld, Inspector at the theft Prevention unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who transferred the ring to the National Treasures Department. It was examined for the IAA by Prof. Shua Amorai-Stark, an expert on ancient rings and amulets from the Kaye Academic College.
“On this beautiful ring, preserved in its entirety, is the image of a helmeted naked figure holding in one hand a shield, and in the other, a spear,” reported Distelfeld and Dr. Eitan Klein, both from the IAA Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery. “Yair’s identification of the figure as a warrior is very close to reality. The figure is probably the goddess Minerva from Roman mythology, known also as Athena in Greek mythology. This goddess, who was very popular during the Roman period in the Land of Israel, was considered, among other things, as the goddess of war and military strategy, and also as the goddess of wisdom.”
“The small bronze ring probably belonged to a woman or girl during the late Roman period (2nd-3rd Century CE). The discovery was made on a hilltop with Roman-period farmstead remains and near an ancient rock quarry. There are two burial caves on the quarry’s edge. The ring could belong to a woman who lived on this farm, or was lost by a quarry worker, or was a burial offering placed in the nearby graves,” say the researchers.
The archaeological site Khirbet Shalala is located on a hilltop in the middle of the Carmel Mountains. It is bound on three sides by the Nahal Oren spring and is close to the Ein Alon spring. The site was explored and documented in the past by the 19th-century surveyors of the Palestine Exploration Fund, by famed Israeli archaeologist Prof. Ruth Amiran, and by a Bar-Ilan University expedition led by Mount Carmel expert Prof. Shimon Dar.
“The ring now connects to data gathered here in earlier excavations and surveys and sheds additional light on this site,” Distelfeld and Klein concluded.
Yair and his family were invited for a tour of the new Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel and received a commendation for good citizenship. The ring will be on display as part of the Jerusalem IAA summer tours at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel.
