Why did Egyptians use a dung beetle as an amulet?

Because of what the beetle does and what its name says. It rolls a ball into the ground and young emerge from it apparently unfathered, which reads as self-creation. And the Egyptian word for the beetle, kheper, is the root of the verb to come into being, so the animal was already a pun on becoming.

What is a heart scarab?

A large, flat-based scarab, usually of a green stone such as jasper, schist or serpentinite, laid over the chest of a mummy and inscribed with chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead. Egyptian belief made the heart the seat of memory and morality and left it in the body, to be weighed by Anubis against the feather of Maat before Osiris. The scarab's text instructs that heart not to testify against its owner.

What is written on the base of a scarab?

Anything from a royal name in a cartouche to an official's title, a god's name, a good-luck formula or a pure geometric pattern. The base is the working surface, since most scarabs were also seals to be pressed into clay.

Are most scarabs on the market genuine?

A great many are not. Egyptian scarabs have been forged industrially since the nineteenth century, and some of those Victorian forgeries are now antiques themselves. Genuine ones also carry export-law questions, so provenance and paperwork matter more here than with any other charm in this library.

What does a scarab mean today?

Renewal, rebirth and the reliable return of the morning, which is close enough to the ancient sense. It carries no restriction from a living tradition and is worn freely, most often as a piece of Egyptian-revival jewellery.

Talismans · Signs and seals

The scarab

Also called: Kheper, heart scarab, scarabaeus

A dung beetle rolling the sun into tomorrow, made into the most-produced amulet of the ancient world.

At a glance

Origin: Ancient Egypt
The god: Khepri, the morning sun
The verb: Kheper, to come into being
Earliest use: First Intermediate Period onward, in quantity
Also served as: A seal, pressed into clay
Special form: The heart scarab, in green stone, over the chest

Why a beetle

Scarabaeus sacer rolls a ball of dung across the ground, buries it, and lays its eggs in it. The young then emerge from the ball with no visible parent. To an Egyptian observer, here was a creature that produced itself out of a sphere it had pushed into the earth, and that came out again.

The Egyptian word for the beetle, kheper, is the same root as the verb meaning to come into being or to become. The god Khepri is the sun at dawn, shown as a beetle or a beetle-headed man, pushing the disc up over the horizon exactly as the insect pushes its ball. The whole symbol is a pun that turned out to be a cosmology.

The seal and the souvenir

Most scarabs are not devotional objects. The domed back is carved as a beetle and the flat underside is engraved, which makes the whole thing a stamp seal. Press it into wet clay on a jar stopper or a document tie and you have signed it.

What is engraved on the base varies enormously: royal names, officials' titles, good-luck formulas, gods, geometric patterns, and short mottoes. Some are commemorative issues, and Amenhotep III famously produced large scarabs recording events like a lion hunt or a marriage, which are effectively press releases.

They were made by the hundred thousand in steatite, glazed and hardened by firing, and in faience, carnelian, amethyst, lapis and gold. This is why the scarab is the single most common Egyptian object in museum collections worldwide, and why the market in forgeries is correspondingly large.

The heart scarab

The most serious version is funerary, and it exists because of a specific problem in Egyptian belief. The heart, not the brain, was the seat of intelligence, memory and morality, and it was the one major organ deliberately left inside the body during embalming. At the judgement it was set on the scales by Anubis and weighed against the feather of Maat before the court of Osiris. A heart heavy with a lifetime of ordinary failings could betray its owner, and the penalty was annihilation rather than punishment.

The workaround was the heart scarab: a large, flat-based scarab, usually cut from a green stone such as jasper, schist or serpentinite, laid directly over the chest of the mummy. The underside carries chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead, occasionally 30A. Fine examples survive from the burial of Queen Manhata and from the official Amenhotep.

The text is not a prayer. It is an instruction addressed to the deceased's own heart: do not stand up as a witness against me, do not oppose me in the tribunal. It is one of the frankest objects in the ancient world, a charm engineered to get its owner past an ethical test they might not otherwise pass.

Reading and buying one

The base is where the information is. Royal name cartouches are the most collectable and the most faked; motto scarabs and pattern scarabs are commoner and cheaper. Material, glaze condition, the carving of the beetle's head plate and legs, and the wear inside the drill hole all bear on age.

Egyptian scarabs are one of the most heavily forged classes of antiquity, and have been since the nineteenth century, so much so that some Victorian fakes are now collected in their own right. Genuine ones are also subject to export law. If you are buying, the questions are provenance and paperwork, in that order.

How a scarab was made and used

The object had a working life before it had a spiritual one.

Carved from steatite, a soft stone, then glazed and fired, which hardens it; finer ones cut from carnelian, amethyst, lapis or gold.
The back shaped as a beetle, the flat base engraved with a name, a motto, a god or a pattern.
Drilled lengthwise and strung on a cord, or mounted as a swivel ring so the base could be pressed into clay.
Used as a seal on jar stoppers, storeroom doors and document ties, which is what most of them actually did.
Given as a token, worn as an amulet of renewal, and buried with the dead in quantity.
For the heart scarab, cut large in dark stone, inscribed with Book of the Dead chapter 30B, and laid over the chest.

A scarab is one of the few amulets that was also a signature. That double life explains why so many survive and why the base carries more information than the beetle does.

What the scarab belongs with

The Egyptian set and the ideas it carried.

Questions for reflection

The scarab was a signature before it was a charm. Does an object gain something by having a job?
The heart scarab guards you against your own heart. What would you want to keep quiet in that tribunal?
A symbol built on a pun lasted three thousand years. What does that suggest about how meaning gets fixed?

Frequently asked questions

: Because of what the beetle does and what its name says. It rolls a ball into the ground and young emerge from it apparently unfathered, which reads as self-creation. And the Egyptian word for the beetle, kheper, is the root of the verb to come into being, so the animal was already a pun on becoming.
: A large, flat-based scarab, usually of a green stone such as jasper, schist or serpentinite, laid over the chest of a mummy and inscribed with chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead. Egyptian belief made the heart the seat of memory and morality and left it in the body, to be weighed by Anubis against the feather of Maat before Osiris. The scarab's text instructs that heart not to testify against its owner.
: Anything from a royal name in a cartouche to an official's title, a god's name, a good-luck formula or a pure geometric pattern. The base is the working surface, since most scarabs were also seals to be pressed into clay.
: A great many are not. Egyptian scarabs have been forged industrially since the nineteenth century, and some of those Victorian forgeries are now antiques themselves. Genuine ones also carry export-law questions, so provenance and paperwork matter more here than with any other charm in this library.
: Renewal, rebirth and the reliable return of the morning, which is close enough to the ancient sense. It carries no restriction from a living tradition and is worn freely, most often as a piece of Egyptian-revival jewellery.

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