X.[ToC]
ETRUSCAN SCARABS. ORIGIN OF AND WHERE FOUND. COPIED FROM EGYPTIAN BUT WITH CHANGES IN SUBJECTS, SIZE AND ORNAMENTATION. THE ENGRAVING OF. WHERE USUALLY FOUND. USES BY THE ETRUSCANS. GREEK AND ROMAN SCARABS. GNOSTIC, OF THE BASILIDIANS.
The archaic people of ancient Etruria did not make cameos, their gems were intaglios and were incised on the under side, on forms shaped in the model of the scarabæus or beetle. The use of the form therefore was most likely derived from those used in the valley of the Nile. The Etruscan scarabs were however not correct representations; they were conventional and exaggerated resemblances of the insect.
The Etruscan scarabæus is found in different parts of Italy, quite frequently at Chiusi, in Tuscany, which was formerly ancient Etruria; from whence, the name Etruscan for those found in this part of Italy, has been derived.
They were usually manufactured of common red sard, such as is now often met with in the beds of Italian torrents, but Etruscan scarabs have also been found made of sardonyx, cornelian, onyx and agate, also, but rarely, of chalcedony.
The ancient inhabitants of Italy followed the Egyptian form in making the representation except, that the back and the wing cases of the scarab are set much higher than the Egyptian, and there is usually a raised ridge running along the junction, also the legs are cut out on the side, and a slight difference exists in the ornamentation and engraving of the wing cases. The stones have been rubbed into shape apparently by corundum. Few exceed an inch, and most are not over half an inch in length, whereas the Egyptian were from the size of our ordinary house fly to those a number of feet across. The material of the Etruscan is also always semi-transparent, except those burned which has made the sard opaque. The flat side or base was engraved with intaglio. This engraving though in early examples rude and done with the drill, was in later times, improved by the use of the wheel, diamond dust and the diamond point, and by the polishing of both the surface and the incised parts, and also, by the addition, both at the sides and around the engraved base, of an ornamental border of small strokes following each other closely, resembling in some specimens, the milling of a coin; in others, it is like a widely linked chain or string of beads, or a loosely twisted cable, and in others like the ornamentation known as "egg moulding."
In Egyptian scarabs the flat or under part of the stone, which is the side engraved in intaglio, has representations of deities or hieroglyphs; in the Etruscan, the subjects engraved in intaglio on the base, are representations of animals, wild or domestic, or are those derived from Egyptian, Assyrian or Babylonian sources, and after acquaintance with the Greeks, subjects derived from early Greek myths, especially the deeds of Herakles and of the heroes of the Trojan War, of those of Thebes and the sports of the Palæstra.