Scarab

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The scarab was shaped like a dung beetle, "scarabaeus sacer," which is also the source of its modern name. The dung beetle was "kheperer" in ancient Egyptian. Having watched the small creatures push huge balls of dung, the ancient Egyptians compared the sun being pushed into the sky at dawn to the beetle, and they referred to the rising sun as "Kheperi." The word for "to become" or "come into being" was "kheper," and the beetle hieroglyph was used to spell all of these words. As such, the scarab became a powerful amulet for rejuvenation in this life and reincarnation in the next. This scarab is schemtic in form, marking the prothorax and elytra of the beetle with deeply incised lines. The base is inscribed with protective signs and images of Amun, Mut, Ptah, Horus, and Thoth.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art