Human-face Scarab with Sphinx and Hieroglyphs

Human-face Scarab with Sphinx and Hieroglyphs

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The underside of this scarab shows a recumbent human-headed sphinx, wearing a nemes-headcloth with a uraeus on the front. The sphinx is a popular motif on scarabs, especially during the New Kingdom and the Late Period, and embodies the pharaoh. Here it holds a seated figure of the goddess Maat in his front paws, while a sun disk is placed above, and below the sphinx the sign of endurance (djed) is flanked by two uraei. On the back, a single line divides the wing cases of the scarab, but a human face with ribbed head band replaces the head and shoulders of the beetle. The earliest examples of human-face scarabs date to the late Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1850-1550 B.C.) but they are also well attested during the late New Kingdom.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Human-face Scarab with Sphinx and HieroglyphsHuman-face Scarab with Sphinx and HieroglyphsHuman-face Scarab with Sphinx and HieroglyphsHuman-face Scarab with Sphinx and HieroglyphsHuman-face Scarab with Sphinx and Hieroglyphs

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.