Ibex Artifact, Jerusalem, Israel, 1999

Archaeologists discovered this copper ibex artifact, along with 428 other ceremonial objects, in a 5,500-year-old cache in a cave in Nahal Mishmar canyon in Jerusalem, Israel. Casting objects such as this copper scepter or mace head required technical finesse and the use of materials such as arsenic-rich copper ore, which does not occur naturally within 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) of the Holy Land.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Journey to the Copper Age," April 1999, National Geographic magazine)