Gem of a Find

There was some beginner's luck this field season at the Hellenistic port of Tel
Dor, 19 miles south of Haifa, Israel. On her first dig, Megan Webb, a
28-year-old potter from Philadelphia, was cleaning an area of a large public
building with her trowel when this tiny gemstone etched with Alexander the
Great's portrait, emerged. Less than half an inch long, it might once have been
mounted on a signet ring

"It is one of perhaps 20 to 30 gemstones--with identifiable portraits of
Alexander--that exist in the world," says University of Washington archaeologist
Sarah Stroup, director of the Tel Dor field school. "And it's one of the first
discovered in a controlled excavation. Many such stones ended up in museums via
the black market."


From Archaeology
http://www.archaeology.org/1001/trenches/gem.html