. 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 belongs to the so-called group of Commemorative scarabs, which were produced in the first years of the reign of king Amenhotep III and his wife Tiye. The bottom inscription of the scarab shows ten lines with left reading hieroglyphs, nine horizontal text dividers, and an oval frame. The inscription contains the so-called 'marriage text.' It focuses on the
. 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 belongs to the so-called group of Commemorative scarabs, which were produced in the first years of the reign of king Amenhotep III and his wife Tiye. The bottom inscription of the scarab shows ten lines with left reading hieroglyphs, nine horizontal text dividers, and an oval frame. The inscription contains the so-called 'marriage text.' It focuses on the divine power and royal authority of the king, the legitimate royal status of the queen, as well as the royal sphere of control in Egypt and the foreign countries. The is precisely written, the shapes of the signs simple and clear, and executed with thick lines; the layout is well organized, but the signs are more narrowly spaced in the upper lines than in the lower ones, indicating that the scribe had to stretch the text to the end. The highest point of the back is the pronotum (dorsal plate of the prothorax). Pronotum and elytron (wing cases) have single borderlines, a double line between the wing cases, and V-shaped marks for the humeral callosities (shoulder thickenings). The semicircular head has a double borderline, and a short zigzag line at the bottom, and the eyes are not marked. The side plates are irregularly trapezoidal, and the clypeus (front plate) shows four frontal serrations. The proportions of the top are slightly unbalanced, and the head sections short in comparison to the large pronotum. The raised, slender extremities have natural form, and vertical hatch notches at the forelegs for the tibial teeth. The low oval base is symmetrical. The scarab is longitudinally pierced and was mounted or threaded. The so-called Commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III were part of a program of official gifts established in the first eleven years of his reign. The texts on th
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Photo credit: © The Picture Art Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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