Scarabs Part 1

Scarabs.

by Isaac Myer.

INTRODUCTION.

The following work is taken in part, from an address delivered by me before, The American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, at its Hall in the City of New York, on March 30th, 1893. Since that time I have been led into a train of thought, having as its basis a more philosophical treatment of the meaning of the scarabaeus as a symbol, in the religious metaphysic conception of it by the Ancient Egyptians, and have added much new matter. I am convinced that at the period when we first meet with the symbol of the scarabaeus in Egypt, it was already the symbol and tangible expression of an elevated religious idea, embracing that of a future life of the human soul, a resurrection of it from the dead, and most likely, of a reward or punishment to it in the future life, based on its conduct when in the terrestrial life.

We know from the inscription on the lid of the coffin of Men-kau-Ra, king of the IVth, the Memphite Dynasty, (_circa_ 3633-3600 B.C.,) and builder of the Third Pyramid at Gizeh; that some of the most elevated conceptions of the _Per-em-hru_, i.e., the so-called, Book of the Dead, were at that time in existence as accepted facts. The dead one at this early period became an Osiris, living eternally. We have every reason to think, that the use of the models of the scarabaeus as the symbol of the resurrection or new-birth, and the future eternal life of the triumphant or justified dead, existed as an accepted dogma, before the earliest historical knowledge we have thus far been able to acquire of the Ancient Egyptians.

It most probably ante-dated the epoch of Mena, the first historical Egyptian king. How long before his period it existed, in the present condition of our knowledge of the ancient history and thought of Egypt, it is impossible to surmise. Of the aborigines of the land of Egypt we do not know nor are we very likely to know, anything. Of the race known to us as the Egyptian we can now a.s.sert with much certainty, that it was a Caucasian people, and likely came from an original home in Asia. When the invader arrived in the valley of the Nile, he appears to have been highly civilized and to have had an elevated form of religious belief.

The oldest stelae known, one of which is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, England, and the other in the Museum at Gizeh, Egypt; were made for the tomb of Shera, who is called on them, "a prophet" and "a royal relative." He was a priest of the period of Sent, the fifth king of the IInd Dynasty, who was living about 4000 B.C. The stele is shown by Lepsius in his _Auswahl_, Plate 9, and is the earliest example of a hieroglyphic inscription known. These stelae are in the form of a false door.

Upon these stelae of Shera, is inscribed the Egyptian prayer for the soul of the dead called, the _Suten-hotep-ta_, from its first words.

The _Suten-hotep-ta_ was supposed to have been delivered by divine revelation. An old text speaks of, a "_Suten-hotep-ta_ exactly corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings, handed down by the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of G.o.d."[1] This prayer inscribed on the steles mentioned, asks that there may be granted the deceased in the other world, funeral oblations, "thousands of oxen, linen bandages, cakes, vessels of wine, incense, etc." This shows that at this very early period there was a belief in Egypt of the future life of the _Ba_, the responsible soul, and of the _Ka_, the vital soul, of the deceased. The word _Ka_ enters into the names of kings Ka-kau, Nefer-ka-Ra, and Nefer-ka-seker of the IInd Dynasty (4133-3966 B.C.) In the same Dynasty the word _Ba_, the name of the responsible soul, and _Baiu_ its plural, enter into the names Neter-Baiu and Ba-en-neter. _Ab_, i.e., the heart, also enters into the name of Per-ab-sen of this Dynasty. We also have _Ba_ in the name of Mer-ba-pen, sixth king of the Ist Dynasty.

It was during the reign of king Sent, that a medical papyrus was edited which shows it was the result of years of experience. From what we have just said it is extremely likely, that the body was mummified in Egypt from the earliest period of which we have knowledge.

Manetho says that Teta, the second king of the 1st Dynasty, _circa_ 4366 B.C., wrote a book on anatomy, and experimented with drugs or chemicals. Shesh, the mother of this king, invented a hair wash.[2]

We can from the foregoing a.s.sume with some certainty, that before the historical period in Ancient Egypt, a religious belief existed, funeral ceremonies, and an expectation of an eternal life of the soul after the death of the body of man on this earth; whether a belief in rewards or punishments to be suffered or enjoyed by the soul after such death, for actions done by man in this earthly life, existed at that time, we cannot as yet, with certainty, affirm; but it is quite likely it did. In this connection a study of the "Pyramid Texts"

published by Maspero in his _Recueil de Travaux_, is of great value to the student.

An element of great value to the student of religions is, that the scarabaeus symbol, is the earliest expression of the most ancient idea of the immortality of the soul after death that has reached our day, taking us back however to a period which may be considered as civilized and enlightened and yet, so encompa.s.sed with the mists of the past, that the mental eye of to-day cannot grasp that past with much tangibility, and giving us almost cause to think, that the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul was a remnant of an early divine revelation, or at least, an advanced instinct of early humanity; for it is a curious phase of archaic Egyptian thought, that the further we go back in our investigations of the origins of its religious ideas, the more ideal and elevated they appear as to the spiritual powers and the unseen world. Idolatry made its greatest advance subsequent to the epoch of the Ancient Empire, and progressed until it finally merged itself into the animalism of the New Empire and the gross paganism of the Greeks and Romans.

We have not yet many religious texts of the Ancient Empire that have been fully studied and made known, but those that have been, exhibit an idealism as to the Supreme Deity and a belief in the immortality of the soul, based on the pious, ethical and charitable conduct of man, which speak highly for an early very elevated thought in religious ideas.

There is however one thought which must strike the student of religions forcibly, that is the fact, that the idea of the re-birth and future eternal life of the pious and moral dead, existed among the Ancient Egyptians as an accepted dogma, long before the period in which Moses is said to have lived. Moses has been a.s.serted both in the New Testament (Acts VII., 22), and by the so-called profane writers Philo and Josephus, to have been learned in all the wisdom and knowledge of the Egyptians of his time, yet we have not in the pages of the Pentateuch, which is usually by the theologians ascribed to him, any direct a.s.sertion of the doctrine of a future life or of an immortality of the human soul, or of a future reward or punishment in a future state of the soul. Ideas are therein set forth however, of a separation of the spiritual part of man into different divisions.

It may be, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not accepted as a religious dogma, by the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings, an apparently Asiatic race, probably Semitic, of which we have not as yet very much knowledge. It is likely that it was under the Hyksos that the Hebrew, Joseph, was advanced to high honors in Egypt, and under their kings, that the influx and increase of the Hebrew population in Egypt began and prospered.

It may be advanced with much certainty, that the Hebrew people residing in Ancient Egypt, must have been acquainted with many of the Egyptian ideas on the subject of the eternal future life of the soul of the dead, and the reward or punishment of it in that future life, for these ideas were undoubtedly widely and generally known by the Egyptian people, and were too thoroughly formulated in the active and daily life of the Ancient Egyptian population, not to have been known by the Hebrews living in daily contact with them, but the Hebrews may not have accepted them as a verity.

It may have been, that as the idea of the future existence of the soul in its perfection, was based upon the mummification and preservation of the body of the dead, so that the _Ka_ might remain with it, and go out and revisit it in the tomb; and also, on inscriptions either on the walls of the tomb or the papyri deposited with the body; that Moses, knowing that in his wanderings and journeyings, it would be impossible to have performed those ceremonies and preliminaries necessary under the Egyptian system, for the proper burial of the corpse; its mummification and the preparation of the funeral inscriptions or papyri, considered as necessary to be inscribed on the walls of the tomb, or on the papyri, to be buried with the corpse, so as to a.s.sist the soul against the perils it was supposed it would encounter in its journey through the Underworld;[3] was therefore compelled to abandon a dogma based on preliminaries and preparations he could not, during such wanderings, have performed. This would be partly an explanation of a subject which has for many years caused much dispute among very erudite theologians.

In order to get some knowledge of the religious philosophical ideas of the Ancient Egyptians, a thorough study of the collection of papyri called, the _Per-em-hru_ or Book of the Dead, is absolutely necessary, also the texts on the walls of the tombs of the Ancient Empire especially those found at Saqqarah. The work of M. Edouard Naville on the _Per-em-hru_ lately published, although it refers more especially to the Theban period, is of great value in this investigation, and when it has been translated into a modern language by a thoroughly competent scholar, will be a key to open many of the now hidden but elevated ideas in the religious philosophy of the Ancient Egyptians.

The edition of the Book of the Dead which I have quoted from is that of M. Paul Pierret, _conservateur_ of the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre, Paris, France.[4] This is founded on the Papyrus of Turin, which is of about the XXVIth Dynasty, the Satic period; the translator has also used in his work, the Egyptian ma.n.u.scripts of the Louvre to a.s.sist in the elucidation of his readings of the Papyrus of Turin. His work is an advance on that of Dr. Samuel Birch, given in 1867, in the Vth volume of Baron von Bunsen's work on Egypt's Place in Universal History. A new translation of the Book of the Dead is now pa.s.sing through the English press, by P. Le Page Renouf, Esq., but only a few chapters thus far have been printed. Mr. Renouf's work as an Egyptologist, deserves much more attention and credit from the learned of both his own and other countries, than it has so far received.

The following among Greek and other ancient writers have mentioned the scarabaeus, mostly in connection with Egypt. Orpheus, Theophrastus, Aristophanes, Pliny, Plutarch, aelian, Clement of Alexandria, Porphyry, Horapollon, Diogenes Laertius, who cites as works in which it was mentioned, the Natural Philosophy by Manetho (_circa_ 286-247 B.C.,) the History of the Philosophy of the Egyptians, by Hecataeus (of Abdera? _circa_ 331 B.C.,) and the writings of Aristagoras (_circa_ 325-300 B.C.,) Eusebius, Arn.o.bius, Epiphanius and Ausonius.

The subject has been somewhat neglected in modern times. Two small brochures on the subject were published by Johann Joachim Bellermann, under the t.i.tle of; _Ueber die Scarabaen-Gemmen, nebst Versuchen die darauf befindlichen Hieroglyphen zu erklaren_, one in 1820, the other 1821. Another very small catalogue ent.i.tled; _Scarabees egyptiens, figures du Musee des Antiquea de sa majeste l'Empereur, Vienne, de l'Imprimerie d'Antoine Strauss_, 1824, was published in that year in Vienna. None of the above contain information of importance on the subject.

Dr. Samuel Birch published the first cla.s.sified collection in his; Catalogue of the collection of Egyptian Antiquities at Alnwick Castle,[5] in which he describes 565 scarabs, signets, etc. In 1884 the Rev. W.J. Loftie published his; An Essay of Scarabs, London, small 4to, no date, 125 numbered copies printed. It contained a brief essay, pp. V-x.x.xII., on scarabs, and a short description of 192. His collection was purchased in 1890 by the Trustees of the British Museum. In the summer of 1876, I published in, The Evening Telegraph, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Centennial Exhibition; two Essays on Scarabaei and Cicadae, and on those exhibited, especially those in the Egyptian Section and those in the Castellani Collection.

In 1887, Dr. E.A. Wallis Budge, F.S.A., gave a description of 150 scarabs in his, Catalogue of the Egyptian Collection of the Harrow School Museum, with translations of most of the inscriptions upon them. In 1888, Dr. A.S. Murray and Mr. Hamilton Smith in their, Catalogue of Gems, gave a list of scarabs and scaraboids. In 1889 Mr.

Flinders Petrie published, Historical Scarabs: A series of Drawings from the Princ.i.p.al Collections, Arranged Chronologically. This book has only nine small pages of description but they are valuable. In his, History of Egypt, Prof. Wiedemann has catalogued a great many scarabs. I have not seen any of the above works except that by Bellermann, that published in Vienna, and those by Loftie and Petrie, all of which I have in my Library. Since my book was printed, I have had my attention called to, The Mummy, Chapters on Egyptian Funeral Archaeology, by E.A. Wallis Budge, Litt. D., F.S.A., Cambridge. At the University Press, 1893. In this p. 231 _et seq._, the learned author has a very interesting chapter on Scarabs.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lepsius, _Denkmal_ III., pl. 13.

[2] _Papyrus Ebers_, Bd. II., _Glossarium Hieroglyphic.u.m_, by Stern, p. 47. The Mummy, etc., by E.A. Wallis Budge, Litt. D., F.S.A., etc.

Cambridge, 1893, pp. 176, 219, 353. Egypt Under the Pharaohs. London, 1891, pp. 27, 28. An interesting but condensed account of Ancient Egyptian medical knowledge, with references to the papyri, is given by M. Maspero in his, _Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, Paris, 1886, pp. 73-77.

[3] We use the word Underworld advisedly, it may be that the meaning of the word so translated, is that of a higher or opposite world to our terrestrial world.

[4] _Le Livre des Morts, des Anciens egyptiens, traduction complete d'apres le Papyrus de Turin et les ma.n.u.scrits du Louvre, accompagnee de Notes et suivie d'un Index a.n.a.lytique. Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1882._

[5] Privately printed by the Duke of Northumberland. London, 1880.

ON SCARABS.

FORMS OF THE WORD SCARABaeUS. VENERATION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS FOR THE SCARABaeUS. ENTOMOLOGY OF THE INSECT. SYMBOLISM OF ACCORDING TO PLUTARCH, PLINY AND HORAPOLLO. ITS ASTRONOMICAL VALUE. WORSHIP OF INSECTS BY OTHER PEOPLES. SYMBOLISM, WITH THE EGYPTIANS, OF THE SCARABaeUS. USES OF IT WITH THEM.

Among the many animals, insects and creatures, held in veneration as symbols by the Ancient Egyptians; the one universally in use as a symbol from a most remote period, were insects of the family of the scarabaeidae.

The Greek name of the models of these was _Skarabaios_, _Skarabos_, _Karabos_, _Karabis_; the Sanskrit, _Carabha_, which like the Latin _Locusta_, designated both the lobster and the gra.s.shopper. The Latin name derived from the Greek, was, _Scarabaeus_, the French, _Scarabee_.

To the people of our day, the high position enjoyed in the religion of Ancient Egypt by this insect, appears very strange, for to us, there is nothing attractive about it. With that people however it held, for some fifty centuries; the position in their religion which the Latin cross now holds with us as Christians, and if we consider for an instant, our own veneration for the latter; it would doubtless have been considered, by those unfamiliar with our religion, as also based on a veneration for a very strange emblem; for the cross was the instrument used by the Romans for punishing with death, murderers and criminals of the lowest type; and what would be thought to-day, of a man worshipping the gallows or the guillotine, or carrying copies modeled from the same, suspended from his neck. However we of to-day all understand the emblem of the cross, and the Ancient Egyptians in their time, all understood the emblem of the scarab.

"Men are rarely conscious of the prejudices, which really incapacitate them, from forming impartial and true judgments on systems alien to their own habits of thought. And philosophers who may pride themselves on their freedom from prejudice, may yet fail to understand; whole cla.s.ses of psychological phenomena which are the result of religious practice, and are familiar to those alone to whom such practice is habitual."[6] Said Thespesion to Apollonius Tyanaeus, according to the biography of the latter, by Philostratus; "The Egyptians do not venture to give form to their deities, they only give them in symbols which have an occult meaning."

The family of the _Scarabaeidae_ or _Coprophagi_ is quite large, the type of the family is the genus _Ateuchus_, the members of this genus are more frequently found in the old world than the new, and of its forty species, thirty belong to Africa.

The sacred scarab of the Egyptians was termed by Linnaeus, the _Scarabaeus sacer_, but later writers have named it, _Ateuchus sacer_.

This insect is found throughout Egypt, the southern part of Europe, in China, the East Indies, in Barbary and at the Cape of Good Hope, Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is black and about one inch in length.

There was also another species of the scarabaeus valued by the Ancient Egyptians, that termed by Cuvier, the _Ateuchus sacer aegyptiorum_, which is larger and wider than the others of its family; it is of green golden tints, and is now found princ.i.p.ally in Egypt and Nubia.

Pliny, in his Natural History says: "The green scarabaeus has the property of rendering the sight more piercing, (i.e., curing fatigue of the eye from its green color,) of those who gaze upon it; hence it is, that the engravers of precious stones use these insects to steady their sight."[7] M. Latreille thinks; the species he named _Ateuchus aegyptiorum_, or ????????a???, and which is of a green color, was that which especially engaged the attention of the Ancient Egyptians.

The Egyptian also held in estimation, the species _Buprestis_ and the _Cantharis_ and _Copris_, and used them as he did the members of the true family of the scarabaeidae, and S. Pa.s.salacqua found a species of _Buprestis_, embalmed in a tomb at Thebes.

At least four species of beetles appear to have been held in veneration and were distinguished, by the absence or presence, of striated elytra. The _Ateuchus sacer_ is the one commonly represented on the monuments. The number of the toes, thirty, symbolized the days of the month, and the movement of the ball, which it manufactured and in which was deposited its egg, symbolized among other things, the action of Ra, the Egyptian sun-deity, at midday.

The Egyptian soldier wore the scarab as a charm or amulet, to increase bravery;[8] the women, to increase fertility. The Greeks called it, Helio-cantharus, and, not understanding its significance, were disposed to ridicule it, as is apparent from the travesty upon it by Aristophanes in his comedy of Peace. Pliny also again speaks of it in his Natural History, saying:

"The scarabaeus also, that forms pellets and rolls them along. It is on account of this kind of scarabaeus that the people of a great part of Egypt worship those insects as divinities, an usage for which Apion gives a curious reason, a.s.serting, as he does, by way of justifying the rites of his nation, that the insect in its operations portrays the revolution of the sun. There is also another kind of scarabaeus, which the magicians recommend to be worn as an amulet--the one that has small horns[9] thrown backwards--it must be taken up, when used for this purpose, with the left hand. A third kind also, known by the name of '_fullo_' and covered with white spots, they recommend to be cut asunder and attached to either arm, the other kinds being worn upon the left arm."[10]

In the work on Egyptian hieroglyphics attributed to a writer called Horapollo, sometimes incorrectly called, Horus Apollo, the first part of which shows, that it was written by a person who was well acquainted with the Egyptian monuments and had studied them carefully, we find: "To denote an _only begotten_, or, _generation_, or, a _father_, or, the _world_, or, a _man_, they delineate a scarabaeus.

And they symbolize by this, an _only begotten_; because the scarabaeus is a creature self-produced, being unconceived by a female; for the propagation of it is unique and after this manner:--when the male is desirous of procreating, he takes the dung of an ox, and shapes it into a spherical form like the world; he then rolls it from him by the hinder parts from East to West, looking himself towards the East, that he may impart to it the figure of the world (for that is borne from East to West, while the course of the stars is from West to East;) then having dug a hole, the scarabaeus deposits this ball in the earth for the s.p.a.ce of twenty-eight days, (for in so many days the moon pa.s.ses through the twelve signs of the zodiac.) By thus remaining under the moon, the race of scarabaei is endued with life; and upon the nine and twentieth day after, having opened the ball, it casts it into the water, for it is aware, that upon that day the conjunction of the moon and sun takes place, as well as the generation of the world.

From the ball thus opened in the water, the animals, that is the scarabaei, issue forth. The scarabaeus also symbolizes _generation_, for the reason before mentioned;--and a _father_, because the scarabaeus is engendered by a father only;--and the _world_ because in its generation it is fashioned in the form of the world;--and a _man_, because there is not any female race among them. Moreover there are three species of scarabaei, the first like a cat,[11] and irradiated, which species they have consecrated to the sun from this similarity; for they say that the male cat changes the shape of the pupils of his eyes according to the course of the sun; for in the morning at the rising of the G.o.d, they are dilated, and in the middle of the day become round, and about sunset, appear less brilliant; whence also, the statue of the G.o.d in the city of the sun[12] is of the form of a cat. Every scarabaeus also has thirty toes, corresponding to the thirty days duration of the month, during which the rising sun performs his course. The second species is the two-horned and bull-formed; which are consecrated to the moon; whence the children of the Egyptians say, that the bull in the heavens is the exaltation of this G.o.ddess. The third species is, the one-horned and Ibis-formed, which they regard as sacred to Hermes (i.e., Thoth.) in like manner as the bird."[13][14]

Horapollo also says: "To denote Hephaestos (Ptah,) they delineate a scarabaeus and a vulture, and to denote Athena (Neith,) a vulture and a scarabaeus."[15]