It might be small , but it is sincerely captivating . This tiny sculpture of a headmade almost 3,000 eld agoin what is now innovative - mean solar day Israel has just gone on display , but despite its spick preservation , it has get archaeologist scrape up their own attic .

The charming trope was discovered last year at the archaeological site of Tel Abel Beth Maacah , which is locate in northerly Israel , not far from the border with Lebanon , and near the modern - day town of Metula . The localization is feature in the Old Testament ’s Books of Kings , mean that due to its age many think the head couldbelong to a Biblical king .

The small figurine only measures 5.5 by 5 centimeter ( 2.2 by 2 inches )   and has been in an elaborate way formed in faience , a type of shiny ceramic , which has been fuse with copper to give it a slimly light-green tinge . Some of the archaeologists mistrust that the pass was once tie to the relaxation of a physical structure , which in total would have resist between 20 to 25 centimeters ( 8 and 10 inch ) tall , but even this is debated .

The delicate feature film peer out from the past , indicate a stern - looking man with what has been described as a “ very interesting hairdo ” . Swept backward and held in place by a isthmus , it is remindful of how ancient Egyptians portrayed their neighbours in the Near East .

“ The guy rope kind of correspond the generic way Semitic hoi polloi are described , ” Hebrew University ’s Naama Yahalom - Mack , told The Associated Press .

The only affair that researcher are sealed about is the fact that this exquisite objet d’art of art depicts a royal – and that ’s only due to the golden crown adorning his heading . Almost everything else about it , include who he might have been and his curious coiffure , stay a mystery .

“ Given that the head was find in a city that sat on the border of three different ancient kingdom , we do not have sex whether it depicts the the like of King Ahab of Israel , King Hazael of Aram - Damascus , or King Ethbaal of Tyre , rulers known from the Bible and other sources,”explainedRobert Mullins , one of the lead archaeologists at the web site . “ The headway symbolise a royal enigma . ”

While radiocarbon dating can not pinpoint the date at which it was made any more precisely than at some point during the ninth one C BCE , the school principal is most definitely one of the more unusual and rarefied object to have been regain from a time in which art was generally very low-pitched quality .