Amuletic scarab. The scarab has a baboon carved in relief on its back. The baboon is seated, with a scale-like mane. On the underside are five lines of carved hieroglyphs, separated by straight horizontal lines and enclosed by an oval border. The scarab has a hole bored through its centre from front to back.
Inscription
N/A
Notes
Alan Cole
Large, amuletic scarab with carved baboon and hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs do not make sense because that stone carver, luckily like the purchaser, was illiterate.. He would have looked around and seen hieroglyphs on a wall or elsewhere and fitted examples into the shape of the scarab to form a symmetric design. The written characters in themselves are assumed to have a magical power. c. 1500 BC.