6,000-year old ivory vessel, likely from Egypt, found near Beersheba
Rare artifact found shattered and ritually interred at Negev site; now expertly restored, it will be presented to the public at Jerusalem conference on Thursday
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
Israeli archaeologists have reconstructed a 6,000-year-old vessel made of elephant ivory, which had been shattered in antiquity and preserved inside a basalt stone container for millennia, the Israel Antique Authority announced Tuesday.
The rare item was discovered in 2020 at Horvat Raqiq, an archaeological site near Beersheba in southern Israel, during infrastructure work to lay a water pipe, the IAA told The Times of Israel.
The vessel has been dated to the Chalcolithic period (4500-3500 BCE), also known as the Copper Age, a time in human development — between the agricultural Neolithic revolution and the later Bronze Age — that saw increased cultural development, the smelting of copper and expanded trade networks.
The find is the first Chalcolithic ivory vessel discovered in Israel, the IAA said, and was likely either imported from Egypt or carved locally from ivory imported from there. The vessel is of a type known to researchers as an amphoriskos, a small jar.
“This find deepens our understanding of the Chalcolithic period and of the cultural exchange ties of our region with both neighboring and distant cultures,” the researchers said. “The vessel is well-made, and makes maximum use of the original tusk – which was a most precious material. If it was manufactured here, it reveals the high standard of craftspeople who dwelt here, who knew how to treat ivory, and also knew elephant anatomy.”
Horvat Raqiq, an ancient settlement also associated with the later Nabatean culture, has been the subject of extensive research but is not currently an active dig site, the IAA said. The artifact was first spotted by IAA photographer Emil Aladjem during a final survey in advance of infrastructure work scheduled for the area.
After discovering the edge of a large basalt stone vessel, the IAA team unearthed a kind of Russian doll configuration of “three large impressive vessels… arranged such that two vessels were emplaced one in the other, with the third acting as a cover for them both.”
“When the upper plate was removed, the lower plate was discovered to be full of earth, within which lay the shattered pieces of an ivory vessel – a rare and precious material,” the authority said in a statement.
The ivory vessel, already broken, was “clearly interred in a deliberate fashion” with “careful forethought… In academic circles, it is generally accepted that figurine and broken vessel deposits and burials are part of cultic ceremonial activities,” the IAA said.
“The vessel is 20 centimeters across. It is gorgeous, and exceptional in its design,” said Dr. Ianir Milevski, former head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s prehistoric branch. “The small side handles are symmetrically arranged, with two handles set into the vessel’s neck and two additional handles vertically below them at its base.”
Analyzing and restoring the ivory vessel, a complex and lengthy process, was a joint effort by IAA researchers, experts from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and ivory conservation expert Olga Negnevitsky.
The vessel is to be presented to the public on Thursday in Jerusalem at the annual Israel Prehistoric Society conference, along with other recent prehistoric discoveries.
