The Egyptian Scarab: Khepri, Seals and Amulets of the Rising Sun

Few animals have been loaded with as much meaning as a small beetle rolling balls of dung across the sand. The Egyptians watched Scarabaeus sacer pushing its sphere and saw in it an image of the sun crossing the sky. From this observation arose one of the most widespread amulets of antiquity, produced for centuries in countless examples and exported throughout the Mediterranean.

Khepri, he who comes into being

The scarab god was called Khepri, a name linked to the verb kheper, “to come into being”, “to transform”. Khepri was the morning sun, reborn each day on the eastern horizon, while Ra was associated with the midday sun and Atum with the evening sun. The fact that young beetles seemed to emerge from the ball without outside help strengthened the link with self-generation. Later Greek authors, such as Plutarch, even report the belief that all scarabs were male.

Amulet and seal

Scarabs in stone or glazed steatite became widespread above all from the Middle Kingdom onwards. Their backs reproduce the body of the insect, while the flat base carries an engraving: names of kings and officials, spiral patterns, wishes, figures of deities. Many served as seals and were pressed into clay to close jars, documents and storeroom doors; at the same time, the shape of Khepri made them bearers of protection.

The most common material was steatite, a soft stone easy to carve, which after firing with a glaze took on blue or green colours. Faience, amethyst, carnelian and lapis lazuli were also used. A lengthwise hole allowed them to be mounted on swivel rings or strung on necklaces and bracelets. The smallest scarabs measure barely a centimetre, while those intended for ceremonial use are far larger than the usual size.

The commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III

A special group is formed by the large scarabs commissioned by Amenhotep III, a king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, in the fourteenth century BC. Their bases carry texts celebrating events of the reign: the marriage to Queen Tiye, the hunts of lions and wild bulls, the arrival of the Mitannian princess Gilukhipa, the digging of a lake for the queen. Circulated in many copies, they worked almost like official announcements in the form of amulets.

A Mediterranean success

Scarabs travelled with trade. They are found in the Levant, on Cyprus, at Carthage, in Sardinia and in Etruria, often produced locally with more or less faithful imitations of hieroglyphs. Phoenicians and Greeks created their own versions, and between the sixth and third centuries BC the Etruscans carved carnelian scarabs with scenes of Greek heroes, now among the most admired gems in museums. In the Punic tombs of Sardinia, for example, scarabs of green stone and jasper are among the most frequent grave goods.

The scarab thus sums up three functions the ancients did not separate: jewellery, administrative tool and sacred protection. Behind its familiar shape lies a whole theology of the sun and of transformation, condensed into an object that fitted in the palm of a hand and accompanied its owner from daily life all the way to the tomb.