Historical Scarabs

Petrie, W.M.F. Historical Scarabs Chronologically Arranged: A series of drawings from the principal collections. (London, 1889, reprint 1976).

Scarabs for sale in the Forum Ancient Coins shop.

Introduction

The present series of drawings only comprises the scarabs bearing the names of kings or private persons; and though it contains those in the principal collections, it is far from being a complete account of all such that are known.  As probably about a hundred are found every year, finality is impossible in such a subject; and as I feared that this series would fall behind in new discoveries more thani it would gain by my examining minor collections form time to time, it is now issued as a first instalment.  Probably a supplementary volume will in course of time outgrow it, as -- on a larger scale -- Mionnet 's supplement outgrew his great work on coins; but the present series will serve to open the subject, and may, I hope, attract further information. 

Hitherto no comparison of different collections has been made.  Prof. Wiedemann has catalogued a great number in his splendid history of Egypt: but there has been no means of comparing them except by visiting all the collections.  But few plates of scarabs have been published, and those usually not in any order; the private collection of Mr. Loftie being the only one uniformly catalogued, in An Essay of Scarabs.  The neglect of this subject is too apparent in the  museums, even at home; the misplacement of perfectly distinct scarabs into a general limbo of unnamed ones, and the wrong names that occur, showing how little attention has been given to them.  I have endeavoured to avoid such as seemed to me to be forgeries, regardless of what credit might be usually attached to them; and where a probable forgery was of great importance, it is inserted with a note of the suspicion.  Generally speaking, forgeries -- except of one or two obvious kinds -- are very rare, and there is nothing like the amount of doubt in the matter which is often supposed to exist.

The question of style of work, and colour of glaze, are of special interest; but, after trying to tabulate them on paper, I found that no such treatment could be satisfactory; nothing but the study of a collection can train the eye in this matter.  Some general indications may, however, be given.  The earliest scarabs -- of Khufu -- are small, of fine work, but without elaboration, and of colours delicate and beautiful, and very permanent; even under Khafra there is a deterioration in the glazing, which has often perished; and later on good glazes are rarer, until a revival under the 11th dynasty.  The early cylinders are all of course, work, and probably belong to a less civilised district, perhaps eastern.  The scroll pattern, so common in the middle kingdom, arises first as a system under Pepi, but is never found continuous on his scarabs; and it is only in the 12th dynasty that the continuous scroll was developed, which became so general in the 13th - 14th, and which lingered on even tho the 19th.  The glazes of the 11th are hard and unalterable, and of fine colours; and some of those of the 12th are very fine, but they have often decomposed.  Blue is a special colour, as it is tin the sculpture of that age.  It is not usually known that all the brown scarabs (which are a majority) have originally been green glazed; while all the white ones (excepting possibly some of Amenhotep III) have bee originally blue. There are also the white and grey ones without any glaze remaining, which have been either blue or green.  The evidences for these transformations are innumerable in the half-way stages, not only on scarabs, but also on ushabtis.  The cowroids with a rope border on the back certainly belong to the Hyksos period, and can be fixed to any other but rarely. 

The 18th dynasty begins with some of a barbaric style, which soon disappeared.   But the characteristics of the first part of the dynasty is the dark-green glaze, rather grayish in tone; this gave way under Amenhotep III to a variety of brilliant tints, especially on the pottery: the reds, yellows, violets, chocolates, and other hues of this age are perfectly characteristic, and are never met with later.  Pottery rings came greatly into use, and are far commoner than scarabs at he end of the the 18the dynasty.  Their range si from Amenhotep II to Ramessu II.  The art of glazing greatly deteriorated after the 18th dynasty, and far the larger par of succeeding scarabs have lost all traces of their original colours, and are now mere browns and greys.  The work also becomes very poor under Ramessu II and his successors, as in sculptures.  Some fine examples occur in the 24th and 25th dynasties, with a revival of both work and glaze; but a settled neatness and poverty overspread the 26th, and is only broken occasionally by the glazed pottery plaques, which seem to have been usually placed in foundation deposits.  The scarab form had run its course, and only lingered in a debased style until the close of the native monarchy in the 30th dynasty.  Later than that we have no proof of any scarab having been made, except the one marble monstrosity in the archaistic revival of the Antonine age. 

The varieties that we see among the scarabs are doubtless largely due to the place as well as period.  Local styles of manufacture often more different than the work of various dynasties, and it is a special subject now to trace out the the styles of each place.  Unhappily, it is only by going got excavate in a site that any infraction can be obtained certainly as to the places of finding; and it is only by a mass of such information that we can be certain of the place of manufacture.  At Tanis the scarabs are ll of schist, rather rough, small and with the glaze almost always perished.  At Naukratis, they are mostly of soft, glazed pottery, or of blue paste, and nearly all small; while  if have been assured that all the scroll-border scarabs come from Abydos. 

A point to which I have given special attention is the re-issue of scarabs of an earlier king in a later reign.  The most distinct cases of this are in the re-issues under Hatshepsu and Tahutmes III (p. 31).  Here the style is identical with those of these sovereigns, and the early and later names often occur together on one scarab.  In one case, No. 946, the scarab is double-reading, the ka serving for both Ra-ma-ka and for Ra-kha-ka.  This opens our eyes to other double-reading scarabs of Ramessu II and Seti I, Ra-user-ma and Ra-ma-men, where the ma is in common, Nos. 1569 - 1578.  All these re-issues I have classed under the period to which I suppose they belong, with cross-references.  It is evident that we must always consider the age of a scarab independently of the inscription, as it may be of any period subsequent to the king named.  But the re-issues are of only a few special periods; and do not cause serious confusion.  The great criterion showing that scarabs really belong to the age of the king they name is in the fact that we find similar work and colour in the majority of the scarabs of any one king, and each such style is different for that of any later age.  In this way we are assured of the original dating of most scarabs from the 4th dynasty down to the end.  No later period shows us any parallel to the bulk of the scarabs of any king; it is only exceptionally that re-issues can be considered, and I have weeded out all such as far as there is any probability of them.   The historical value of the scarabs will be seen by several points concerning unknown kings which are here brought to light.  The evidence on the Hyksos king, Khian (lately discussed in the Academy), is a special case in point, and the partial filing up of the 9th and 10th dynasties here, results from the consideration of the style of these scarabs.  To the outsider, probably all styles look much alike as foreigners do to a stranger; but to an accustomed eye the specialities of each dynasty, and even of separate reigns, are very clear.  The distinction of the styles of scarabs is as much a special subject as the discrimination of the manner of painters, and as invisible to those who are unfamiliar with the study. 

As I hope to continue to collect drawings for another series I should be very glad of any information on scarabs not shown in this volume.  The best and safest way of forwarding copies is to take tin-foil impressions (beating the foil in with a tooth-brush), and to forward them in a small box; they may even be sent in a letter or a book, with little harm to their legibility.  Making such copies cannot possibly hurt the most tender scarabs, and they are almost as good as the originals for drawing from.  Rubbings or ink stamps are far inferior.  A note of the colour of the original will add much to the value of the impression. 

The arrangement of this catalogue is chronological, so far as possible.  At the outer corner of every page the dynasty is marked, the pages being numbered at the inner corners.  Each scarab is numbered with sloping figures at the bottom right-hand, placed thus to distinguish them from museum numbers.  The first essential for a book of reference is that it shall be easy to refer to it, though this is too often ignored.  Here I have mad3e each sheet and each page and line, so far as possible to be self-contained; so thus the whole of one class can be seen at one view.  This requirement has led to the use of folding-out sheets of pages, which can also be turned over without being unfolded; and in many cases I have thought it the lesser evil to compress the arrangement unduly, rather than break up a series into different places.  This series contains all the drawings that i have hitherto obtained, being a practically entire representation of the following collections which are denoted by the letters prefixed to the scarabs; of the Men-kheper-ra scarabs, however, I have only made a selection.     

                        

This series represents, therefore 2,220 scarabs and other objects directly, and 143 more by drawing which are made from other specimens, but which are so alike that a fresh drawing was not needed.  the source of the drawing is always shown by the first museum initialed on the drawing.  The total accounted for is 2,363. 

The scarabs are always to be understood to be soft schist or steatite unless otherwise described.  "Pot." means pottery with superficial colouring; while "paste" is an artificial mixture of uniform colour throughout.  The colours are shown by letters wt. white; gy., grey; gn., green; bl., blue; yell., yellow; br., brown.; bk., black.  Where the colour has changed and the original can be still see, it is usually noted; as gn. gone br., green gone brown; or bl. gone wt., blue changed to white.  The Palin scarabs are nearly all in Turin now, and some few in the Louvre, so that i have only given those of which I have not seen the originals.  the scarabs in the Monuments Divers were all in the Bulak Museum, but most were stolen in 1878, and for these I have to quote the publication.  I hear they were mainly sold to General Cesnola for New York; if there were not far more promising work to do in Egypt, it would be interesting to search out this clue to the robbery in America.  The occasional translations given are largely due to the suggestions of my friend  Mr. Ll. Griffith.

From all I learn, the collections that I have not visited are but poor in scarabs.  Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and the remaining private collections, none of them would take more than sixth or eight place in importance in the list of collections here represented.  Any further materials will be gladly welcomed by the author.  W. M. Flinders Petrie.  Bromley, Kent.