Scarab Incised with Hierolgyphs and Flower in Circle Border

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the early second millennium B.C., many Egyptian stamp seals are incised with decorative compositions of circles or scrolls. Compositions with circles become even more popular on Second Intermediate Period Egyptian scarabs and on Canaanite scarabs of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1500 B.C.). Hieroglyphs and a stylized lotus flower decorate the underside of this scarab. They are surrounded by a border of circles, a design frequently found on Canaanite scarabs like this one. The hieroglyphs are not meant to form words, but were chosen for their decorative and general protective powers.

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