I saw it and dived down to touch it. It turned out to be a stone anchor carved with the symbol. It's like going into an Egyptian temple on the bottom of the Mediterranean, Haaretz quoted veterinarian Rafi Bahalul as saying.
What Mr Bahalul, a 55-year-old veterinarian and artist in Ein Hod, northern Israel, discovered underwater was a 3,400-year-old Egyptian stone quarry. The anchor is beautifully decorated, highlighted with the image of an ancient goddess and the symbolic words. It was clearly submerged in sand, almost intact for centuries until it was swept away by the storm near the shore.
Bahalul has called on experts from the Israeli Institute of Archaeology to check the artifacts outside Atlit, a town near Haifa.
This is a site where other antiques have been discovered. Sometimes, the sea itself has served our archaeological work, and fortunately a resident has seen and reported it to us, said Jacob Sharvit, head of the maritime archaeology unit of the Israel Institute of Archaeology.
The stone anchor has been salvaged and is currently on display in an exhibition of Egyptian autography at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The stone anchor is used by ships during the bronze age, which ended about 3,200 years ago, said Ms. Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, head of Egyptian archaeology at the museum. This anchor is shaped like a ladder with round corners, with a hole drilled near the top to fix the day.
Similar anchorages from this period have previously appeared on the coast of Levant - a large area in the eastern Mediterranean. But the unique thing about this anchor is the quantity and quality of the decoration - Ms. Ben-Dor Evian said.
Most notably, the image below is identified as the goddess Seshat, the goddess of intelligence and self-reliance in ancient Egyptian mythology, Mrs. Ben-Dor Evian explained.
This goddess does not have a dedicated temple but often appears on the walls of other major temples, recording the reign of Pharaoh, recording all the feats and achievements, including prisoners or military spoils of a king.
Based on the metaphorical words, Ms. Ben-Dor Evian believes that it was carved around the 15th century BC, that is, more than 3,400 years ago.
