Scarabs Part 3

[39] _Ibid._ XLL, 42.

[40] Brugsch-Bey says: "The immigration of Joseph into Egypt was about 1730 B.C., near the time of the reign of the Hyksos King, Nub." Egypt Under the Pharaohs. London, 1891, p. 120 _et seq._

[41] x.x.xIX., 6, 7, 10, 14.

[42] M. Joachim Menant, _Les Pierres Gravees de la Haute-Asie.

Recherches sur la Glyptique Orientale_. Paris, 1886, Part II., p. 197.

[43] Bragsch-Bey in his, Egypt Under the Pharaohs. London, 1891, p. 36 _et seq._

[44] M. Auguste Mariette, Outlines of Ancient Egyptian History, makes the IVth Dynasty begin at 4235 B.C.

[45] _Decouvertes en Chaldee_ par M. Ernest de Sarzec, etc. _Ouvrage accompagne de planches_, etc. Paris, 1884, _et seq._ See also, Article in Harper's Magazine, January, 1894, and Qabbalah, etc., by Isaac Myer. Philadelphia, 1888, p. 237 _et seq._

[46] See the instances given by M. Menant in his _Les Pierres Gravees de la Haute-Asie. Recherches sur la Glyptique Orientale_, etc. Paris, 1886, p. 197 _et seq._

[47] _Ibid._, p. 200.

[48] Hand-book of Archaeology. London, 1867, pp. 253, 289. Recently Dr.

Fritz Hommel, in his, _Der babylonische Ursprung der agyptischen Kultur_, Munchen, 1892, has endeavored to prove the contrary.

IV.

THE OLDEST SCARABS. CLa.s.sIFICATION AND VALUE OF THE SCARAB TO THE SCHOLAR OF TO-DAY. LARGE INSCRIBED HISTORICAL SCARABS.

The oldest scarabs, as to which one can feel any certainty of their being genuine, are those I have mentioned bearing the name of Neb-Ka incised on the under surface. This pharaoh was of the IIIrd Dynasty and was living according to Brugsch-Bey, (3933-3900 B.C.)[49] That would make 5,826 years past according to Brugsch. Auguste Mariette would make it much more ancient.

These scarabs were made of pottery and glazed a pale green. It has been stated by some archaeologists that the oldest scarabs were not engraved, the under part being made to represent the legs of the beetle folded under its body, but this is only a supposition, as the age can only be determined with any certainty, by the inscriptions incised on the under part and those not so inscribed, may be of different periods, some of very late times.

The forms usually met with in the tombs are, first; those with the lower part as a flat level surface for the purpose of having an inscription incised upon it; those having the engraving incised upon such a surface; and those with the legs inserted under them in imitation of nature. Sometimes the head and thorax are replaced by a human face, and occasionally the body or the elytra have the form of the Egyptian royal cap.

They often hold between the fore-legs representations of the sun.

The smaller scarabs have as subjects engraved upon them, representations of the Egyptian deities, the names of the reigning pharaohs, of queens, animals, religious symbols, sacred, civil and funeral emblems, names of priests, n.o.bles, officers of state and private individuals, ornaments, plants, and sometimes dates and numbers written in ciphers. Some have upon them mottoes, such as: "Good Luck," "A Happy Life," etc., being used for sealing letters, etc., and as presents. The larger sized have frequently texts and parts of chapters from the Book of the Dead.

We can therefore make a general cla.s.sification of scarabs into:

I. Mythological or Religious, containing subjects, figures or inscriptions, connected with kosmogony, kosmology, or, religion.

II. Historical, containing royal cartouches and names of men, and figures relating to civil customs.

III. Physiographical, containing animals or plants connected with consecrated symbols.

IV. Funereal, connected with the _Ka_ or life of the mummy in this world, and with the journey of his _Ba_ or responsible soul, through the under-world.

V. Talisman or Amulets, to preserve the wearer from injury in this world, by men or by evil spirits.

VI. Signets or Seals for official use, to verify doc.u.ments or evidence, protect property and correspondence, etc.

VII. And others, which have upon them only ornamental designs, as to which we cannot, up to this time, ascertain the meaning.

The Historical scarabs are of great value in ascertaining or displaying, in chronological series, the cartouches or shield names, if I may be permitted thus to term them, of the monarchs of Egypt; going from the most remote antiquity of the Egyptian kingdom, to A.D.

200.

"The Ancient Egyptians," remarks the Rev. Mr. Loftie, in his admirable little book; Of Scarabs, p. 30 _et seq._, "happy people, had no money on which to stamp the image and superscription of their Pharaohs. A collection of scarabs, inscribed with the names of kings, stands therefore to Egyptian history as a collection of coins stands to the history of the younger nations of the earth. The day must come when our Universities and other bodies of learned folk, will study the beginnings of things as they are presented in Egyptian history, and some knowledge of these curious little objects will become indispensable to an educated man * * * * The collection now arranged in the British Museum is second to none."

I would also say, those in the Louvre at Paris, are now arranged chronologically. A good collection is also in the Egyptian Museum at Gizeh, collected by M. Mariette; formerly it was very fine. Mr. W.M.

Flinders Petrie a.s.serts[50] that most have been stolen, and further says: "I hear that they were mainly sold to General Cesnola for New York." If these are in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of New York City, it possesses a genuine and rare collection of scarabs.

A large number of scarabs bear the names of the pharaonic kings; this is not strange when we remember that the pharaoh was Horus, Khepera, and also a son of Ra and of Osiris. These cartouches are those of kings of orthodox Egyptian descent, we do not find the names of the Greek Ptolemies upon them, the Roman Emperors, as conquerors, sometimes used them but that does not prove their abstract right to do so.

The latest, in the collection belonging to France, is of Nectanebo the last native pharaoh, (_circa_ 300 B.C.)

Some of them, as did those of Thotmes IIIrd, bear the inscription, Ra-men-kheper, i.e., Ra, the sun-G.o.d establishes the future resurrection. This is found on fully one-half of the specimens from the XVIIIth Dynasty down.

The art of making the scarabs as I have said before, varies with the epochs. The most elegantly finished are those of the time of the IVth Dynasty (3733-3600 B.C.,) that of the Great Pyramids; in the XIIth Dynasty (2466-2266 B.C.,) fine work again appears, then comes inartistic work. Again with the XVIIIth Dynasty (1700-1433 B.C.,) arises another period of splendor, and the art after again deteriorating revived under the XXVIth, the Satic Dynasty, (666-528 B.C.)

Amenophis (or Amen-hotep) IIIrd of the XVIIIth Dynasty, the Memnon of the Greeks,[51] (_circa_ 1500-1466 B.C.,) had a number of large scarabs made, their object was not sepulchral nor were they to be used as talisman, but they apparently were made for the incising upon them, of purely historical inscriptions; such monuments are exceedingly rare and are almost limited to the time of this Pharaoh. In the great building erected by him, now known as the Temple of Luxor, were found four of these great inscribed scarabs. Rosellini has given copies and explanations of two of them. Dr. Samuel Birch has given a translation of them, which I think is subject to revision.[52] One relates to the marriage of Amen-hotep IIIrd in the tenth year of his reign, with his queen Thya, (Taia, or Thai;) a second relates to the same subject and to the arrival of Thya and Gilukipa in Egypt, with 317 women; a third, now in the Vatican, mentions a tank or sacred lake, made for the queen Thya, in the eleventh year and third month of his reign, to celebrate the Festival of the Waters, on which occasion he entered it, in a boat of "the most gracious Disk of Ra," i.e., the sun-G.o.d. This subst.i.tution of the boat of the "Disk of Ra" for the usual boat of Amen-Ra, is the first indication of a new, or heretical, sun worship.[53]

One in the Museum of the Louvre (No. 580-747, Vitrine N.) reads: "The living Horus, the bull strong through the _Ma_, the sovereign of the two regions, supporter of the laws and preserver of the land (country,) the Horus triumphant and great by his valor, vanquisher of the Asiatics, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, _Ra-ma-neb_ (the prenomen of the king,) son of the sun, Amenophis III., giving life. The queen _Taia_ living.

Account of the lions brought from Asia by his Majesty, namely: from the first year to the tenth, savage lions 102."

Another in the same Museum (582-787, Vitrine N.) This begins, as the preceding, with an eulogy of Amenophis III. and follows with: "The princ.i.p.al consort _Taia_, living, the name of her father (is) _Auaa_.

The name of her mother (is) _Tuaa_, She is the consort of the victorious king whose frontiers (extend) to the south as far as _Ka ro_ (or, Karai, perhaps Soudan,) to the north as far as Naharina,"

i.e., Mesopotamia. There are many other historical scarabs in this Museum but these have the longest and most important inscriptions.

Another scarab of this Pharaoh is in the collection of the Rev. W.J.

Loftie, of London, England. It is large, 3- inches long by 2- inches wide, it is made of steat.i.te and glazed; it tells: "The number of fierce lions brought in by his majesty, and killed by him, from the beginning of his first (year) to the tenth year of his reign, were 102."[54]

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Egypt Under the Pharaohs, etc. London, 1891, p. 20.

[50] Historical Scarabs, etc., by W.M. Flinders Petrie. London, 1889, p. 14.

[51] Egypt Under the Pharaohs, by Brugsch-Bey. London, 1891, pp. 205, 206, 208.

[52] Records of the Past, Vol. XII., p. 37 _et seq._

[53] Bunsen. Egypt's Place in Hist., etc., III., p. 142, etc.; also Records of Past, above cited.

[54] An Essay of Scarabs, by W.J. Loftie, B.A., F.S.A. London, (125 copies printed,) pp. 37, 38.