Home > Explore + Learn > Unearthing Arabia: The Archaeological Adventures of Wendell Phillips > Excavations: Timna
> Object
Alexander Honeyman with “Miriam”
“Professor A. M. Honeyman holding the beautifully formed head of a young woman carved in translucent alabaster, dating from approximately the first century. It was named ‘Miriam’ by the Arab workmen who dug it out of the Timna cemetery.” Phillips continued, “Miriam brought luck to the workers at the graveyard, for that site began to yield more finds than had been expected. The day after Miriam’s rebirth from a two-thousand-year burial, the workmen found some oxidized cloth and wood, fragments of pottery, chips of alabaster . . . and a small yellow object glistening through the sand. . . . It was a beautiful gold necklace, pendant and chain.”
