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Tel Aviv [Israel], May 27 (ANI/TPS): <keyword id="20130255" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="archaeologists" source="keywords">Archaeologists</keyword> have discovered a remarkably well-preserved 2,300-year-old ring of a child from the <keyword id="21827337" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hellenistic-period" source="keywords">Hellenistic period</keyword> at an excavation in <keyword id="19897916" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jerusalem" source="keywords">Jerusalem</keyword>'s <keyword id="21827338" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="City-of-David" source="keywords">City of David</keyword> archaeological park, the <keyword id="21827339" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Israel-Antiquities-Authority" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Israel Antiquities Authority" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Israel Antiquities Authority">Israel Antiquities Authority</keyword> announced on Monday.<br /><br />The <keyword id="20181810" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="gold-ring" source="keywords">gold ring</keyword>, adorned with a red precious stone -- believed to be garnet -- has a small diameter, leading experts to believe it was likely worn by a boy or girl.<br /><br />"I was sifting earth through the screen and suddenly saw something glitter. I immediately yelled, 'I found a ring, I found a ring!'" said Tehiya Gangate, a member of the excavation team. "Within seconds, everyone gathered around me, and there was great excitement. This is an emotionally moving find, not the kind you find every day. In truth, I always wanted to find gold jewelry, and I am very happy this dream came true -- literally a week before I went on maternity leave."<br /><br />The discovery "paints a new picture of the nature and stature of Jerusalem's inhabitants in the Early Hellenistic Period," said <keyword id="20569026" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tel-Aviv-University" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Tel Aviv University" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Tel Aviv University">Tel Aviv University</keyword> Professor Yuval Gadot.<br /><br />"Whereas in the past we found only a few structures and finds from this era, and thus most scholars assumed Jerusalem was then a small town, limited to the top of the southeastern slope ("City of David") and with relatively very few resources, these new finds tell a different story," Gadot explained.<br /><br />"It certainly seems that the city's residents were open to the widespread Hellenistic style and influences prevalent also in the eastern Mediterranean Basin," he added.<br /><br />The City of David is the original core of the ancient biblical city. Located just outside the southern walls of Jerusalem's Old City, it is considered one of <keyword id="6355882" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Israel" source="Orion">Israel</keyword>'s most important archaeological sites.<br /><br />It is where King David established his capital and the site of many pivotal biblical events. The park is best known for Hezekiah's Tunnel, which was constructed by King Hezekiah to provide water to the city ahead of an Assyrian siege led by Sennacherib.<br /><br />Visitors can see the excavated remains of houses, cisterns, and fortifications, getting a glimpse into Jerusalem's <keyword id="21680475" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ancient-history" source="keywords">ancient history</keyword>.<br /><br />The ring will be displayed to the public at an Antiquities Authority conference on Jerusalem Day on June 4.<br />

Golden glimpse into the past: Archaeologists find 2,300-year-old gold ring in Jerusalem's City of David

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>While <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/egypt">Egypt's</a> best known sites are the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/downside-to-visiting-pyramids-of-giza-in-egypt-2019-1">Great Pyramids of Giza</a> -<span> </span>the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World still standing - and the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, those bucket-list destinations can be crowded and give only a small picture of ancient Egyptian society.</strong></li><li><strong>An Egyptian local told me, upon arriving in the southern town of Aswan, that if I wanted to really get to know ancient Egyptian culture, I should visit the ruins of Abu, l<strong>ocated on the small, quiet Elephantine Island in the middle of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-economy-egyptians-entrepreneurial-creative-2019-1">Nile River</a>.</strong></strong></li><li><strong>Few tourists take the time to visit the site, making <strong>Abu a treat to explore. Its fascinating ruins</strong> are that of an ancient border town and military stronghold, showing what life was like during ancient Egypt all the way through the ancient Greek and Roman empires.</strong></li></ul><p>While most tourists visit Egypt to cross the Great Pyramid of Giza off their bucket list, the country is jam-packed with historical monuments, ancient temples, and artifacts.</p><p>After spending a month in the country this past December, I was surprised to find that the highlight of my visit wasn't the Great Pyramid, or even the<span> Luxor and Karnak temples, the country's most famous ancient temples. Instead, it was ancient ruins near Egypt's southern border that I didn't even know existed before I got there.</span></p><p><span>After I visited the pyramids in Giza, I took an overnight train to Aswan, a small town in Upper Egypt that serves as a jumping off point for tours up the Nile River. I was picked up at the train station by my tour guide, a man named Michael. </span></p><p><span>After a day of sightseeing around the town, he took me on a felucca, a small wooden boat, across the Nile River to Elephantine Island, where he told me I'd be staying. From far away, the island doesn't look like much. There's a Movenpick Resort on one end and a Nubian village on the other. But, after he got me settled in the Nubian bed and breakfast, he took me out to the balcony and pointed towards the tip of the island.</span></p><p><span>"When you have free time tomorrow," he said. "Walk down there. Trust me, you won't regret it." </span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>The next day, I turned out to have <em>a lot</em> of free time, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-tourism-industry-leaves-tourists-frustrated-2018-12">after a snafu with the Nile cruise ship</a> I was supposed to be on. I decided to take advantage and headed where Michael had directed me.</span></p><p><span>I stumbled past an unmanned gate into what looked like ruins that were still mid-excavation. As I wandered through, I couldn't help get the feeling of an archaeologist still surveying the field for new discoveries. </span></p><p><span>The ruins turned out to be that of Abu, sometimes called Yebu, which means ivory or elephant in Egyptian. The settlement of Abu has existed since prehistoric times and was continually inhabited up until the Middle Ages.</span></p><p><span>After I'd walked through the area for a few minutes, a tour guide on the site flagged me down to point me in the direction of the ticket booth. Then he offered to give me a tour. I was glad I took him up on it.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>As the guide explained, Abu is fascinating for a few reasons.</p><p>While the Valley of the Kings and the Pyramids are structures dedicated to the deceased, Abu was a thriving town for thousands of years. It provides a real window into what Egyptian society was like through the ages.</p><p>For a long time, Abu marked the border between the kingdom of Egypt and the kingdom of Nubia. It served as a major military fort for the Egyptians and experts believe it served as a major trading center for ivory, hence its name.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">The god Khnum, depicted as a man with a ram's head, is all over the town.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The ruins look to be mid-excavation because they are. The <span>German Archaeological Institute <a href="https://www.bluffton.edu/homepages/facstaff/sullivanm/egypt/aswan/satet.html">began excavating Abu in 1969 </a>and it continues to do so to this day. </span></p><p>While much of the ancient town has been knocked down by the Ottomans and other empires, it was never built over because of its isolated position on the island. That means much of the materials are still mostly intact and can be reassembled into the various temples and structures that once stood. </p><p>The town <a href="https://www.egypttoursplus.com/elephantine-island/">was an important religious center as well</a>. In ancient Egypt, locals believed that Khnum, the god that controlled the Nile River, lived on the island. The largest structure in the town is the reconstructed <span>Temple of Khnum, built during the Old Kingdom and then rebuilt when the Greeks controlled Egypt during the Ptolemaic dynasties.</span></p><p>The god Khnum, depicted as a man with a ram's head, is all over the town.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">Historians believe the indent in this wall exists because that is where people placed their head when they prayed.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>There are nooks and crannies to explore throughout the town at your leisure. Whereas top sites like the Luxor and Karnak Temples and the Pyramids were swarming with tourists when I visited, Abu was deserted. The tour guide and I were the only ones in the entire complex.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>That left plenty of time for him to point out interesting phenomena that I would have never noticed otherwise, like this indent in the wall of one of the temples in the below photo.</p><p>According to the guide, historians believe the indent exists because that is where people placed their head when they prayed.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The guide said that this reconstructed seating area was once part of an ancient bathhouse. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">This reconstructed seating area was once part of an ancient bathhouse.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>And this shrine was made from a single block of granite. Much of the ruins and temples near Aswan are made of granite due to the ubiquity of the stone in the area. Elephantine Island, on which Abu is located, had several ancient granite quarries.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">A shrine made from a single block of granite.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As the town was inhabited for thousands of years, there are temples, carvings, and monuments to the kings and gods of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome.</p><p>While Romans worshipped their own gods, and then later brought Christianity, the ancient Greeks paid tribute to Egyptian gods, likely to make it easier to rule the locals. For example, this <a href="http://www.travelcenturies.com/depdetails.aspx?ID=514&amp;Name=The_Temple_of_Khnum,_Aswan">stone gateway was built by Alexander IV</a>, the son of Alexander the Great, to honor and worship Khnum.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">This stone gateway was built by Alexander IV, the son of Alexander the Great, to honor and worship Khnum.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The most interesting part to me were the Nilometers, ancient devices that were <a href="https://www.egypttoursplus.com/elephantine-island/">used to measure the annual floods</a> of the Nile. So far, archaeologists<a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160517-nilometer-discovered-ancient-egypt-nile-river-archaeology/"> have only uncovered around a dozen</a> in Egypt. Two of them are on Elephantine Island.</p><p>While they vary somewhat in structure, this Nilometer is a rectangular staircase that leads down to the river. When the river flooded, water rushed into the passageway. The severity of the flood was determined by the scales built or carved into the walls.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">This Nilometer, which measured annual floods of the Nile, is a rectangular staircase that leads down to the river.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Nilometer was used throughout the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman periods. Each civilization used its own measuring method, evidenced by the differing limestone and rock measurement carvings along the wall. They served a very important purpose.</p><p><span>"During the time of the pharaohs, the nilometer was used to compute the levy of taxes, and this was also likely the case during the Hellenistic period," Robert Littman, an archaeologist at the University of Hawaii, <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160517-nilometer-discovered-ancient-egypt-nile-river-archaeology/">told National Geographic</a>. </span></p><p><span>"If the water level indicated there would be a strong harvest, taxes would be higher."</span></p><p><span>After two hours meandering through the deserted town, I was ready to leave. But I couldn't have been happier that I took the time to explore.</span></p><p><span>Often times, the best tourist experiences are the ones you didn't plan and had no expectations for.</span></p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>More about visiting Egypt from Business Insider's international correspondent:</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-tourism-industry-leaves-tourists-frustrated-2018-12" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">I'm convinced Egypt could be the world's greatest tourist destination if it weren't for a troubling pattern</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egyptair-boeing-777-economy-class-flight-review-2019-1" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">A flight on EgyptAir showed me even the most basic flag carrier can be better than American airlines</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-pyramids-of-giza-look-like-2019-1" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Staying in the shadow of Egypt's iconic pyramids is more surreal than any photos can show</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/overnight-sleeper-first-class-train-egypt-2019-1" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">I took a 12-hour overnight first-class sleeper train through the heart of Egypt, and it's an experience I won't forget anytime soon</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cairo-most-polluted-city-in-the-world-americans-air-pollution-2018-11" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">I visited what's possibly the world's most polluted city, and realized Americans have no idea how good they have it</a></li></ul>      <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boogers-snot-eat-nose-unhealthy-science-virus-bacteria-2019-1">There are serious health reasons why you shouldn't eat your boogers</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Forget the Pyramids of Giza. A local tipped me off to a little-known site of ancient ruins that's equally fascinating and never crowded

You Searched For "Hellenistic period" and got 2 results

Golden glimpse into the past: Archaeologists find 2,300-year-old gold ring in Jerusalem's City of David

ANI

Forget the Pyramids of Giza. A local tipped me off to a little-known site of ancient ruins that's equally fascinating and never crowded

Harrison Jacobs

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