Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Gassendi, Pierre" to "Geocentric" / Volume 11, Slice 5

by Various

27-34.—EARLY GREEK SCARABS AND SCARABAEOIDS. 27. Pluto and Persephone. (New York.) 28. Boreas and Oreithyia. (New York.) 29. Youth and Dog. 30. Archer feeling Arrow Tip. (Lord Southesk.) 31. Satyr and Wine Cup. 32. Archer and Dog. 33. Satyr with Wineskin. 34. Athena with Gorgon Spoils. 35-44.—FINEST GREEK SCARABS AND SCARABAEOIDS. 35. Head of Young Warrior. 36. Lyre Player. (Cockerell Coll.) 37. Crane, with Deer’s Antler. 38. Head of Eos. 39. Lyre Player. (Woodhouse Coll. and B.M.) 40. Lyre Player, signed by Syries. 41. Stork and Grasshopper, signed by Dexamenos. (St. Petersburg.) 42. Flying Crane, signed by Dexamenos. (St. Petersburg.) 43. Flying Goose. 44. Lion and Stag. 45-54.—ETRUSCAN SCARABS. 45. Achilles in Retirement. 46. Victory. 47. Capaneus struck by the Bolt. 48. Heracles. 49. Capaneus struck by the Bolt. 50. Achilles. 51. Heracles and Cycnus. 52. Heracles. 53. Heracles and the Lion. 54. Machaon bandaging Philoctetes.

55-57—GREEK GEMS. 55. Girl with Scroll and Lyre. 56. Girl with Water-Jar. 57. Head of Aristippus—Deities. 58-61.—SIGNED GEMS. 58. Asclepius of Aulos. 59. Citharist of Allion. 60. Medusa of Solon. 61. Heracles of Gnaios. 62-70.—ROMAN GEMS. 62. Portrait. 63. Head of Trajan Decius. 64. Ares and Aphrodite. 65. Jupiter of Heliopolis. 66. Artemis of Ephesus. 67. So-called Psyche. 68. So-called Psyche. 69. Minerva with Mask, Stamp for the Eye Balsam of Herophilus. 70. Helios. 71-72.—CHRISTIAN GEMS. 71. Crucifixion. 72. Good Shepherd. Jonah. 73-76.—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY GEMS. 73. Achilles of Pamphilus, copied from the antique. 74. Eros and Psyche, by Pichler. 75. Head of Athena. 76. Athena, from Townley Bust by Marchant.

After the Persian conquest the victors adopted the cylinder form of the conquered, and continued to use it. A Persian cylinder seal of Darius (probably about 500 B.C.) in the British Museum shows the king in his chariot, transfixing a lion with his arrows, in a palm wood. Above is the winged emblem of the Persian deity Ahuramazda. The inscription gives the name and titles of Darius in the Persian, Scythic and Babylonian languages. The style is accurate and minute. The idea of the lion hunt is borrowed from the Assyrian monuments, but the engraver has been careful to make the necessary changes of costume and treatment. The cylinder was, as might be anticipated, imitated to a certain extent by peoples of the Eastern world in touch with Babylonia. It occurs in Armenia, Media and Elam. It has been found in Crete (British School Annual, viii. p. 77) and is frequent in the early Cypriote deposits. In some instances it has been found unfinished and therefore must be supposed to be of local manufacture. Sometimes a direct imitation of cuneiform characters occurs on the Cypriote cylinders. The same form was also employed by the Phoenicians (about the 8th century-7th century B.C.). By the Greeks and Etruscans it was used, but only rarely, and by way of exception.

Egypt.—We must go back to the remotest periods for the origin of intaglio engraving in Egypt. Recent discoveries of tombs of the earliest dynasties at Abydos and Nagada have thrown much light on the early stages of Egyptian art, and have revealed the remarkable fact that in Egypt (as in Babylonia) the cylinder was the earliest form used for the purpose of a seal. The cylinders that have been found are comparatively few in number; but a large number of jar-stoppings of clay are preserved on which cylinder designs have been rolled off while the clay was still soft. Such early incised cylinders as are extant are made either of hard wood or (as in an instance in the British Museum) of stone. The identity of form has been thought to indicate a connexion with Babylonia, but none can be traced in the designs of the respective cylinders.

The Egyptians of the earliest dynasties had an admirable command of hard stones, as shown by their beads and stone vases, but with the exception of the cylinders quoted they are not known to have applied their skill to the production of intaglios. At this early period the scarab (or beetle) was still unknown as a gem-form. It was only about the time of the 4th dynasty that the scarab (q.v.) was first introduced, and gradually took the place of the cylinder as the prevailing shape.

The Scarabaeus sacer (Egyptian, Kheperer), rolling its eggs in a ball of mud, became the accepted emblem of the sun-god, and so the form had an amuletic value. Scarabs of obsidian and crystal date back to the 4th dynasty. Others, coarse and uninscribed, belong to the beginning of the first Theban empire. After the 18th dynasty they are counted by thousands. While the beetle form was naturalistically treated, the flat surface underneath was well adapted to receive a hieroglyphic sign. The scarabs, however, are by no means the only product of the art. We have also figures of all kinds in the round and in intaglio—statuettes, figures of animals and of deities, and sacred emblems such as the ankh (or crux ansata) and the eye. Among interesting variations from the scarab form is the oblong intaglio of green jasper in the Louvre (Gazette arch., 1878, p. 41) with a design on both sides. It represents on the obverse Tethmosis (Thothmes) II. (1800 B.C.) slaying a lion, and identified by his cartouche. On the reverse we have the same king drawing his bow against his enemies from a war chariot. The scarabs of Egypt though uninteresting in themselves, considered as examples of engraving, have this accidental importance in the history of art, that they furnished the Phoenicians with a model which they were able to improve as regards the intaglio by a more free spirit of design, gathered partly from Egypt and partly from Assyria. The scarab thus improved exercised a lasting influence on the later history, since, as will be seen below, it was adopted and modified both by Greeks and Etruscans.

Fig. 1.—Jewish High Priest’s Breastplate.

Engraved Gems in the Bible.—While the Phoenicians have left actual specimens to show with what skill they could adopt the systems of gem-engraving prevailing at their time in Egypt and Assyria, the Israelites, on the other hand, have left records to prove, if not their skill, at least the estimation in which they held engraved gems. “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond” (Jerem. xvii. 1). To pledge his word Judah gave Tamar his signet, with its cord for suspension, and staff (Gen. xxxviii. 18); whence if this passage be compared with the frequent use of “seal” in a metaphorical sense in the Bible, and with the usage of the Babylonians of carrying a seal with an emblem engraved on it recorded by Herodotus, it may be concluded that among the Israelites also every man of mark at least wore a signet. Their acquaintance with the use of seals in Egypt and Assyria is seen in the statement that Pharaoh gave Joseph his signet ring as a badge of investiture (Gen. xli. 42), and that the stone which closed the den of lions was sealed by Darius with his own signet and with the signet of his lords (Daniel vi. 17). Then as to the stones which were most prized, Ezekiel (xxviii. 13), speaking of the prince of Tyre, mentions “the sardius, the topaz and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald and the carbuncle,” stones which again occur in that most memorable of records, the description of the breastplate of the high priest (Exodus xxviii. 16-21, and xxxix. 8-14). Twelve stones grouped in four rows, each with three specimens, may be arranged on a square, so as to have the rows placed either vertically or horizontally. If they are to cover the whole square, then, unless the gold mounts supplied the necessary compensation, they must be cut in an oblong form, and if the names engraved on them are to run lengthwise, as is the manner of Assyrian cylinders, then the stones, to be legible, must be grouped in four horizontal rows of three each. There is in fact no reason to suppose that the gems of the breastplate were in any other form than that of cylinders such as abounded to the knowledge of the Israelites, with this possibility, however, that they may have been cut lengthways into half-cylinders like a fragmentary one of sard in the British Museum, which has been mounted in bronze, and, as a remarkable exception, has been set with three small precious stones now missing. It could not have been a seal, because of this setting, and because the inscription is not reversed. The names of the twelve tribes, not their standards, as has been thought, may have been engraved in this fashion, just as on the two onyx stones in the preceding verses (Exodus xxviii. 9-11), where there can be no question but that actual names were incised. On these two stones the order of the names was according to primogeniture, and this, it is likely, would apply to the breastplate also. The accompanying diagram will show how the stones, supposing them to have been cylinders or half-cylinders, may have been arranged consistently with the descriptions of the Septuagint. In the arrangement of Josephus (iii. 7. 5) the jasper is made to change places with the sapphire, the amethyst with the agate, and the onyx with the beryl, while our version differs partly in the order and partly in the names of the stones; but probably in all these accounts the names had in some cases other meanings than those which they now carry. It must be remembered that we have two series of equivalents, namely, the Hebrew compared with the Septuagint, and the Greek words of the Septuagint compared with the modern names, which in many cases, though derived from the Greek, have changed their applications. From the fact that to each tribe was assigned a stone of different colour, it may be taken that in each case the colour was one which belonged prescriptively to the tribe and was symbolic, as in Assyria, where the seven planets appropriated each a special colour [see Brandis in Hermes, 1867, p. 259 seq., and de Saulcy, Revue archéologique, 1869, ii. p. 91; and compare Revelation xxi. 12, 13, where the twelve gates, which have the names of the twelve tribes written upon them, are grouped in four threes, and 19, 20, where the twelve precious stones of the walls are given]. The precious stones which occur among the cylinders of the British Museum are sard, emerald, lapis lazuli (sapphire of the ancients), agate, onyx, jasper and rock crystal.

Gem-Engraving in Greek Lands.—We must now turn to the history of gem-engraving in Greek lands. The excavations in Crete in the first years of the 20th century revealed a previously unknown culture, which lasted on the lowest computation for more than two thousand years, and was only interrupted by the national upheavals which preceded the opening of Greek history proper. (See [Crete]; Archaeology; and [Aegean Civilization].) Throughout the whole period the products of the gem-engraver occupy an important place among the surviving remains. It must suffice, however, in this place to indicate the chief groups of stones.

The earliest engraved stones of Minoan Crete are three-sided prism seals, made of a soft steatite, native in S.E. Crete (Journ. of Hellenic Studies, xvii. p. 328). These are incised with pictorial signs evidently belonging to a rudimentary hieroglyphic system, and are dated before 3000 B.C. At a period placed by A.J. Evans between 2800 and 2200 the method was fully systematized and employed on the signets, as well as on tablets and other materials. This development of the hieroglyphic system was accompanied by an increasing power of working in hard material, and cornelian and chalcedony superseded soft steatite (Journ. of Hell. Studies, xvii. p. 334).