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The emblem of the German-Lebanese joint project was created after a find from the 2003 campaign, namely a Middle Bronze Age scarab seal (TB03:84) with a recumbent caprid and an Egyptian symbol of life engraved on the underside.
Caprids on Middle Bronze Age stamp seals are mostly depicted in stride, as, for example on early pieces from Byblos*. The recumbent position is rarer. A scarab from Tell el-Dabca (Stratum G, ca. 1740-1710 B.C.) is very close to the piece from Tell el-Burak, as its underside is also carved with a recumbent caprid and a symbol of life**.
Katar Abed, member of the team from the American University of Beirut, retrieved the scarab in the Middle Bronze Age palace area, more precisely, in a filling layer of the eastern corner room (Room 3). The drawing of the Tell el-Burak emblem was executed by Tobias Schneider (Tübingen).
* Cf. O. Keel: Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina/Israel, Einleitung (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica 10), Freiburg 1995, p. 190 and fig. 10:5 and fig. 327.
** Cf. fig. 328 O. Keel, above.