Lydia Marner Holding the Hathor Statue (Photo by Edan Haran IAA)
An unbelievable archeological find was discovered in Israel by a woman who was just out for a walk along the beach. A more than 3,000-year-old statuette, identified with the Egyptian goddess Hathor, was discovered by a woman from Lod in the Palmahim Beach National Park and was handed over to the state treasures.
Lydia Marner, 74 years old, immigrated to Israel from Azerbaijan with her husband and two daughters. Since her retirement from her job as a mediator in the Ministry of Social Affairs, she and her husband go on weekly trips to the Palmachim beach.
And this is not the first time that such an important find was discovered by an everyday person. In May, Jewish Business News reported on how an Israeli swimmer made an amazing historic find: a rare cargo of 1,800-year-old marble artifacts, borne in a merchant ship that was shipwrecked in a storm. It was uncovered just 200 meters off the coast near Netanya.
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And in February, an Israeli teenager, a volunteer, uncovered a rare gold bead from the end of the Roman era while taking part in the sifting project at the Archaeological Experience at the Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavation of the Pilgrimage Road in the City of David, part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park. The gold bead is handmade in a delicate and complicated process.
The Goddess Hathor Statue (Photo by Edan Haran IAI)
About finding the statuette, Lydia Marner said, “The beach is one of our favorite places in Israel. Almost every week we go on family trips, sometimes we even go to the sea, and it is a place of very high family value for us.”
About a month ago, during one of the weekly trips, while walking along the beach, she noticed that something was sticking out of the sea. “It was a rather windy day; the waves were high, and the weather was wintry,” explained Lydia. “During the walk by the water, I noticed a stone coming towards me. I immediately called my husband and told him – it’s not for nothing, I saw that there was something beyond here.”
Lydia took a picture of the find, and tried to check with her acquaintances who understand what it is, they immediately told her that it looks like something that needs to be checked by professionals. She turned to the Antiquities Authority’s Facebook page, and Dror Citron and Idan Horn, inspectors on behalf of the Authority, came to examine the special statuette.
Dr. Amir Golani, Bronze Age expert at the Israel Antiquities Authority, explained that such stauettes are typical of the Canaanite culture in the Land of Israel – mainly in the Late Bronze Age and also in the Iron Age.
“The Canaanites used to adopt ritual and religious customs of the Egyptians, who ruled our region at that time,” he said. “Just like homes today, where you install a mezuzah or hang a picture of a saint on the wall, back then – they used to place ritual figurines in a central place in the house, for good luck and protection from bad things.”
