Bonner, SMA – PDF, 154.

amulets it occurs oftener as an accessory detail than as the principal design; yet several stones with the scarab as the principal subject have been published. A good specimen, hitherto unpublished, is in private possession in New York.³¹ It is a lentoid rock crystal showing the beetle with extended wings encircled with an inscription that I do not remember to have seen elsewhere; certainly it is not one of the familiar formulas — οσαφαρωχωχ υψοροχωωχ. The reverse has the common word μαρμαραυωθ. According to Schwab, this represents the Aramaic “Lord of luminaries” (hrb); others take it to be “Lord of Lords.”³²

The most remarkable specimen of this kind is a lapis lazuli scarab in the British Museum (56277). Here we have, not as in the former example, a mere engraving of the flying insect, but, rather, a solid representation of the beetle with its wings fully extended, much as it appears in some amulets of the dynastic period. On the under side of the wings are the words αβλαναθαναλβα, which is often associated with Harpocrates, and ακραμμαχαμαρε. A much longer inscription covers the body of the insect, but the only elements recognized are at the end — ἐν οὐρανῷ ἀμὴν ἀμήν.

The most interesting published amulets in which the scarab is the main element are three illustrated by Matter, which may be passed over with brief comment.³³ On one the beetle is given a human face with radiate nimbus;³⁴ on another, where a hawk is placed at each side of the beetle, the reverse is inscribed φρη, “the sun.”³⁵ On the third the scarab seems to have the canine head of Anubis, and is encircled by the chabrach formula, which generally belongs to the Harpocrates gems. The reverse has the long Iaeo palindrome, which also has solar associations.

It should not be forgotten that the very numerous “Chnoubis” stones, with a radiate lion-headed serpent as their chief subject, are to be counted among solar amulets, although they were often, perhaps usually, applied to a medical purpose, the cure of stomach ailments. We have seen that two other solar types are very numerous also, namely, Harpocrates and the cock-headed god with serpent legs. In fact, it is safe to say that a considerable majority of all Graeco-Egyptian amulets were made under the influence of a solar religion of highly syncretistic character. Since such amulets seem to have been very widely used by all classes of the population, one has the right to infer that this solar religion exerted an influence far beyond the circle of believers who gave it its original impulse.

From very ancient times the cynocephalus baboon was considered by the Egyptians to be a sacred animal, because of its habit of chattering at sunrise.³⁶ This was supposed to be its greeting to the sun-god, and consequently Egyptian

³¹ D. 250.

³² “Vocab. de l'angélologie,” Mém. Acad. Inscr., Sér. I, 10, 410. Cf. PGM IV , 365; Peterson, Heis Theos, p. 307.

³³ Matter, Pl. 2 B, 3–5.

³⁴ A man-headed scarab is represented on B. M. 56486.

³⁵ The same design is used on the reverse of D. 210, encircled by the Iarbatha formula.

³⁶ Erman, p. 20, fig. 8; Müller, p. 32, figs. 13,14.

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