One of the first questions anyone asks me about being on a dig is what is, "What is the coolest thing that you've found?" There's a lot of things this year that I can answer since we are digging in a layer that was quickly destroyed in a fire, but this is one of my favorite things that came out of Grid 51 so far. One of our volunteers found a scarab from Egypt while she was lowering the floor, and it was amazingly detailed. This shows us that Ashkelon was trading with Egypt during the 604 BCE time period and can help archaeologists determine what was kept in people's homes. Check out the pictures below of what we found, as well as a picture of a real scarab beetle found nearby in our grid that it was modeled after.
