Details

LOT 0483

Egyptian Mixed Scarab Collection

2ND-1ST MILLENNIUM B.C.

1/2 - 1 in. (18.64 grams total, 14-27 mm).

Comprising (from left to right, top to bottom): 1) a scarab with an oval border containing the throne name of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh, Seti I (Men-Maat-Re); 2) a scarab with an oval outer border containing a continuous oblong scroll border framing a neb and ankh symbol; 3) a scarab with an oval border containing a seated adorant before a sa, water, and neb symbol; 4) a scarab with an oval border containing the throne name of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh, Ramesses II (User-Maat-Re), atop a neb sign; 5) a scarab with two signs, possibly representing the word for ‘bread’ above a goose, with a beer jar in front; 6) and a scaraboid with a stretched oval border containing mirrored pairs of rearing cobras surrounding a central sun disc. [6]

Provenance

From the collection of a gentleman, acquired on the London art market in the 1990s.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

Cf. 1) Petrie, W.M.F., Scarabs and Cylinders with Names, London, 1917, pl. XXXIX, no.24, for similar; 2) Ben-Tor, D., Scarabs, Chronology, and Interconnections: Egypt and Palestine in the Second Intermediate Period, Fribourg/Göttingen, 2007, pl. 15, Design class 7A2, for this late Middle Kingdom type; 3) Newberry, P.E., Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire N° 36001-37521, Scarab-shaped Seals, Cairo, 1907, pl. XIV, no. 36571, for a motif using a horizontal sa sign; 4) Petrie, W.M.F., Scarabs and Cylinders with Names, London, 1917, pl. XLI, no. 98, for similar; 5) Matouk, F.S., Corpus du scarabée égyptien. Vol. 2: Analyse thématique, Beirut, 1976, p. 393, nos. 1029-1039, for examples of scarab motifs incorporating a duck and other symbols; 6) Petrie, W.M.F., Button and Design Scarabs, London, 1925, pl. XXX, no. 67, for a similar mirrored cobra motif.