Funerary scarab

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This scarab amulet depicts the scarab beetle with a naturalistic underside and a loop at its belly. Scarabs in this shape may have been used only as amulets for mummies and they are often called naturalistic scarabs or funerary scarabs. They can easily be differentiated by their shape from the most common type of scarab, which has a flat underside with designs or a short inscription. The latter could be used for sealing purposes as well, which is why it is called a seal amulet; it is usually pierced lengthwise. The scarab beetle’s behaviour of rolling large dung balls was associated by the ancient Egyptians with the movement of the sun through the sky. They also thought that this beetle generated spontaneously in the ground. The belief in the scarab’s self-generation and its association with the sun god made it a potent amulet that was thought to bear the power of life and regeneration.

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