III.[ToC]
METHOD, PERIOD AND ANTIQUITY, OF ENGRAVING THE SCARAB AND OTHER FORMS. USE OF RINGS. MENTION OF, AND OF ENGRAVING AND SEALING, IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. USE OF CYLINDER SIGNETS BY THE EGYPTIANS. RELATIONS WITH MESOPOTAMIA. CARVING OF DIORITE AND OTHER HARD STONE. THE EGYPTIANS DID NOT BORROW THEIR ENGRAVING AND THE SCARAB, FROM MESOPOTAMIA. DISUSE OF SCARABS.
The art of the lapidary is asserted in the Book of Enoch, to have been taught to mankind by the angel Azazel,[23] chief of the angels who took to themselves wives from among the daughters of men. The most ancient method consisted, in obtaining a flat surface by rubbing or scraping, with corundum or other hard and wearing stone, the stone to be engraved. If a very hard stone, the incising or cutting was done by drilling, wearing and polishing, through attrition, by means of a wooden or metal point, kept in connection with a silicious sand or corundum, by the medium of oil or water; and also, by the use of the punch and of the wheel. The Greek artists likely used powdered emery and copper drills. Bronze and iron drills, and those of other metals may have been used at a very early period. Pliny says, corundum was used in the form of a splinter fixed in an iron style. The ancients also appear at a very early period, to have used diamond dust and oil, and diamond splinters, framed in iron.
It has been shown by recent investigations, that the Ancient Egyptians, before the building of the Great Pyramid; cut diorite, syenite and other very hard stone, by means of saws, some of them nine feet long, having jeweled teeth inserted; and that they excavated the centre of large blocks of hard stones for use as sarcophagi, etc., by means of tubular or circular hollow drills, the cutting surface of which was armed with jewels. They then took out the core and broke down the partitions between the drilled holes, with the chisel and hammer, and thus made large excavations in the block of hard stone. They also used lathes at a most archaic period in cutting diorite and other hard stones.[24] They also used the bow-drill,[25] They also may have known and used boort.
As early as the first Theban Dynasty, the XIIth Egyptian (2466-2266 B.C.,) the Dynasty in which lived the Amen-em-hats and the Usertsens, the great early art period of the Egyptian empire,[26] the Egyptians engraved on amethyst, jasper and rock crystal, and at that early period did some of the most beautiful work remaining to us of their glyptography. The signets however were not always in scarab form, they were sometimes squares or parallelograms.[27]
There is now in the Museum of the Louvre in Paris, France, the finest old cameo in the world. It is of the reign of Amen-em-hat IIIrd of the XIIth Dynasty, (2300 B.C.) This was the first Theban Dynasty and is a very rare period for Egyptian cameo work, as they then usually incised their engraving on precious stones and did not engrave them in relief.[28] The stone is a square sardonyx and is engraved in relief, with great fineness on one side, with a figure the name of which can be read Ha-ro-bes, the other side is incised and has the figure of a pharaoh killing a prisoner, whom he holds by the beard, with a mace; the cartouch reads, Ra-en-ma, i.e., Amen-em-hat IIIrd. The intaglio work on this side is not equal to that in cameo, on the other.
There is yet in existence the signet ring of the celebrated Queen Hatshepsu (circa 1600-1566 B.C.) It is made of fine turquoise, cut in the form of a scarab, perforated longitudinally and hung on a swivel. On the under side is engraved the family name of the Queen.[29] There also exists the signet ring of Amen-hotep IInd, (1566-1533 B.C.,) having inserted in it a fine green glazed scarab.[30]