File:Egyptian - Scarab Amulet - Walters 4258 - Left Profile.jpg

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Scarab Amulet   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Artist
Anonymous (Egypt)Unknown author
Title
Scarab Amulet
Description
English: The ancient Egyptians believed that the dung beetle, the Scarabaeus sacer, was one of the manifestations of the sun god. Representations of these beetles were used as amulets, and for ritual or administrative purposes.

This scarab displays on the bottom side the figure of the goddess Taweret. Her appearance combines a hippopotamus body, lion paws, crocodile head and tail, and human arms and hands. The goddess is standing on her hindlegs, and her left arm is out stretched in front of her. Above the goddess is a human eye. It is possible to interpret both icons as hieroglyphs, and translate: "Taweret is watchful." The bottom design is linearly incised, and hollowed out in sunk relief, the depicted eye is done with very fine lines, and dominant to the figure of the goddess by its size and placement; the figure of Taweret is, for a hippopotamus, unusually slender and elongated; the left outstretched arm with the open human hand is very slim and long, and fills the empty space in front of the goddess; it is disproportional to her right arm, which is placed beside her body; the whole layout is well organized, but there is more space between the eye and the upper part of the frame than between Taweret and the lower part.

The highest point of the back is the partition between pronotum (dorsal plate of the prothorax) and elytron (wing cases). Pronotum and elytron have incised borderlines, separation lines, and V-shaped marks for humeral callosities (shoulder thickenings).

The long-oval head is flanked by quarter-spherical eyes; the irregularly trapezoidal side plates show outside-depressions, and the clypeus (front plate) four serrations. The raise extremities have natural form, and vertical hatch lines for the tibial teeth and pilosity (hair). The base is symmetrically oval.

The bottom design is linearly incised, and hollowed out in sunk relief, the depicted eye is done with very fine lines, and dominant to the figure of the goddess by its size and placement; the figure of Taweret is, for a hippopotamus, unusually slender and elongated; the left outstretched arm with the open human hand is very slim and long, and fills the empty space in front of the goddess; it is disproportional to her right arm, which is placed beside her body; the whole layout is well organized, but there is more space between the eye and the upper part of the frame than between Taweret and the lower part.

The scarab is longitudinally pierced, was originally mounted or threaded, and functioned as an amulet. It should secure the protection of the goddess, and refer to her watchfulness. It might have been created to protect pregnant women or newborn children.

The figure of Taweret is an unusual variant with a crocodile instead of a hippopotamus head. It is also unusual that the goddess has no nb-basket or other element below her feet to function as a baseline.
Date between 1070 and 736 BC (Third Intermediate)
Medium light beige steatite with blue-green glaze
Dimensions height: 1.5 cm (0.5 in); width: 1.1 cm (0.4 in); depth: 0.7 cm (0.2 in)
dimensions QS:P2048,1.5U174728
dimensions QS:P2049,1.1U174728
dimensions QS:P5524,0.7U174728
institution QS:P195,Q210081
Accession number
42.58
Place of creation Egypt
Object history
Credit line Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929
Inscriptions [Translation] Taweret is watchful
Source Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork
Permission
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attribution share alike
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Attribution: Walters Art Museum
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GNU head Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

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current02:52, 26 March 2012Thumbnail for version as of 02:52, 26 March 20121,800 × 1,797 (1.79 MB)File Upload Bot (Kaldari) (talk | contribs)== {{int:filedesc}} == {{Walters Art Museum artwork |artist = Egyptian |title = ''Scarab Amulet'' |description = {{en|The ancient Egyptians believed that the dung beetle, the Scarabaeus sacer, was one of the manifestations of...