BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Child Finds Roman-Era Figurine in the Negev

A child’s curiosity unearths ancient history

Roman-era figurine with the child who found it near the Ramon Crater in the Negev. Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority.

On a family trip to the Ramon Crater in southern Israel, an eight-year-old was “looking for special things on the ground that I could show in class,” when he spotted what he thought was a striped stone. He was right that it was a stone, just one carved into a figurine 1,700 years ago.

The Roman-era figurine fragment, only about 2.5 inches across, preserves part of a robed human figure. Laboratory analysis showed the stone to be phosphorite, a sedimentary rock common in the Negev. Archaeologists identified the striped portion as carved folds of a cloak, or “himation.” The statuette was dated to the Greco-Roman period based on style, and may have depicted Jupiter or a fusion local deity known as Dushara, the chief Nabataean god who was often associated with Zeus in the Roman period.

Roman-era figurine found near the Ramon Crater in the Negev. Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Negev is a semi-arid desert, where most rain falls in short bursts during the winter, and long dry periods dominate the rest of the year. Notable permanent settlements existed, but many people moved through the Negev based on rainfall, grazing availability, and for the purposes of trade. As opposed to being continuously inhabited like more fertile regions, the Negev was a dynamic place where most came and went seasonally.

In the Iron Age as a whole (1200–586 BCE), the Negev functioned as a frontier zone. In the later Iron Age, it lay on the southern edges of the kingdoms of Judah and Edom (a Transjordanian kingdom). Archaeologists have uncovered fortresses and administrative centers at the Negev sites of Tel Arad and Tel Be’er Sheva, suggesting with other evidence that rulers defended their southern borders through ongoing presence in the Negev.

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Especially from the third century BCE to the second century CE, the Nabataean kingdom played a central role in the Negev. The Nabataeans were a wealthy trading people who controlled important routes across the desert via an interconnected network of towns and caravan stations. Nabataean expertise in water management—including cisterns, channels, and floodwater collection systems—made sustained desert travel possible.

The Negev also lay close to the copper-producing Aravah Valley, including the mines of Timna. In the Iron Age, but more intensely in the later Nabataean and Roman periods, desert trade routes connected mineral resources, livestock, incense, spice, and luxury goods to wider regional markets. Nabataean merchants transported things like frankincense, myrrh, and perfumes from southern Arabia northward to Mediterranean ports. The Nabataean capital at Petra became wealthy through this commerce.

The Roman Empire annexed the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 CE under Emperor Trajan. The region underwent a major transformation in this time as Roman culture merged with existing Nabataean traditions. The routes, settlements, and general culture blended with Roman influence, perhaps explaining the Roman garb on what otherwise might be a Nabataean god. A local craftsman working in the Negev may have sculpted a figure combining Nabataean and Roman religious imagery for travelers, worshipers, or a nearby settlement. A special find indeed, and one that the young boy has shared not only with his class, but with all of us.

Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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