Other archaeologists there are who hold that these objects were made and used for the purpose of personal decoration; but although there is every reason to believe that they were often, perhaps generally, worn on the person, it by no means follows that this was their only or even their principal use. At the present day we often carry our seals on our watch chains, or we wear our signets as rings on our fingers, but we cannot rightly say that these articles were made solely for the adornment of the person.

These are the principal theories regarding the use and signification of the Egyptian scarab which have been set forth in works hitherto published on the subject, but archaeologists are beginning to abandon these views in favour of another and a simpler one, that has not as yet been discussed at length, but that recognizes in these little objects nothing more than a simple seal or signet.[[111]] This use is borne witness to by the great number of actual impressions of them on bits of clay that have served as seals to letters and other documents, as well as to boxes, vases, and bags that have been found in the ruins of ancient towns; and these impressions include every variety of scarab—royal, official, and private, as well as those bearing figures of animals and ornamental patterns. The large number of scarabs which bear the names of officials and private persons also points to the same conclusion, for it is impossible to regard the examples of this extensive group in any other light than as the “direct forerunners of the private seals which are so universal in the East at the present day.” A large number of scarabs have also been dug up by excavators which are mounted in metal bands (fundae), showing that they had served as bezels to rings, and many early rings with scarab bezels may be seen in our museums; these can hardly be regarded in any other light than as signet-rings.

It has been urged against this interpretation that the manufacture of scarabs in such profusion as we find them, precludes the idea that they were signets and nothing more, but it seems to have been forgotten that many millions of people must have lived during the several thousand years of ancient Egyptian history. The fact also that so many bear the royal superscription of one and the same king has likewise been brought forward as a serious objection to the theory that royal scarabs were used as seals; but here again the two kings whose names are most often found on these objects are the two—Thothmes III and Rameses II—whose reigns were the longest of all the Egyptian monarchs, and they must have employed a great number of officials entitled to use the royal seals during their long administrations. It is in the light of seals, therefore, that scarabs are considered in the present volume.

Their history.

It is difficult to fix the precise period at which the scarab form of seal first appears in history. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that not a single specimen has yet been authenticated from a grave of a date anterior to the Sixth Dynasty. The remarkable tombs discovered by Petrie, de Morgan and others, at Abydos, Nagada, and Bêt Khalâf, though they contained not a single scarab or impression of one, produced a large series of clay sealings used for wine jars, etc., exhibiting impressions of cylinder seals. It is remarkable also that in the extensive cemetery of Dendera, where there were many remains of the Sixth to Eleventh Dynasties, not a single scarab was found which could be attributed to an earlier period than the Twelfth Dynasty, and a similar result was obtained from the cemetery at Hu of the same period. In Mr. Garstang’s excavations at Beni Hasan, out of eight hundred tombs of the period that were opened and examined, not one inscribed scarab was found of the Eleventh and early Twelfth Dynasties. These facts would lead one to suppose that at least scarabs were not in general use in Egypt until the middle of the Twelfth Dynasty.

Fig. 56.

A few scarabs, however, bear the names of kings of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Dynasties, but from the forms of the backs, the glaze and general technique, they all appear to me to be of a much later period than that of the monarchs whose names they bear. The names anterior to the Twelfth Dynasty that occur upon such scarabs are Mena, Khufu, Kha-ef-ra, Men-kau-ra, Unas, Merŷ-ra (Pepŷ I) and Mer-en-ra. The Mena scarabs are admitted by Prof. Petrie and other Egyptian archaeologists to be of a much later date than the Old Kingdom. That scarabs of Khufu, Kha-ef-ra and Men-kau-ra were made during the Eighteenth and later dynasties there can be no question. In the Cairo Museum are four scarabs, all found together by Mariette at Sakkara, which are of exactly the same modelling, material and glaze: one bears the name of Khufu, another that of Nefer-ka-ra, the third that of Nefer-ra, while the fourth is of Amenardes of the Twenty-Fourth Dynasty. In a private collection in Cairo is a scarab bearing the name of Kha-ef-ra in green glazed steatite, with cutting, form of back, and glaze exactly similar to that of a well-known type of Thothmes III. All the Men-kau-ra scarabs are also undoubtedly not earlier than the period of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The Unas scarabs bear a great resemblance to a certain class of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties: they are generally coarsely cut, and the glaze has turned a dull brown. The only scarab of Merŷ-ra known is of the same style as the scarabs of the Thirteenth Dynasty, and Merŷ-ra was a fairly common personal name at that period. About the Mer-en-ra example I am inclined to believe that it is perhaps contemporary with the king whose name it bears, for it is of glazed pottery, and closely resembles in style and technique a very small and distinctive class of scarab-seal which has been recently found in association with button-shaped seals in graves of the intermediate period between the end of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty.[[112]] That scarabs sometimes bear the names of two or more kings, is also another proof that we cannot always treat of them as contemporary with the kings whose names they bear. Thus scarabs are known of Thothmes I, III, and Setŷ I, of Thothmes III and Usertsen III, of Men-kau-ra and Thothmes III.

Fig. 57.
SCARAB BEARING
THE NAMES
THOTHMES III AND
AMENHETEP II. 2:1