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THE COLOUR OF SCARAB SEALS.

 

Not the least of the many attractions of well preserved scarabs are their the colours even though most commonly they are of a whitish to ochre colour sometimes easily confused in colour for ivory. In fact the last finishing touch to scarab seals was a kind of a coloured glaze (1) normally in the range of green and blue (2).  Petrie also quotes yellow, red and, and in the Saite period, brown.

 

In reality, we know little about the glazing technique (supposing that the term is appropriate):  scholars have offered just a few scattered observations about this, sometimes contrasting: they mention heated applications (3), and cold working. The only constant certainty seems to be the heat hardening of steatite; baking the seals transforms it into enstatite, changing  it from a hardness  of 1 on Moh's scale, the same as of talc, to a hardness 5-6  and giving the scarab a much greater hardiness  (4).

 

 

These colours may have been deliberately achieved  like this but  on the other hand little is said about the other colours, some of them very attractive  in effect and  almost certainly obtained by happy accident. In fact, the siliceous elements utilized for the glaze could contain metallic oxides or salts which resulted in colours differing from those that might have been expected.

 

This glaze is of infinitesimal thickness. On plane or broad surfaces, like the back or base, it is easily lost over time ; the original green, probably containing iron, decomposes to a brown colour and the blue fades away to white. Examination with a magnifying glass will often reveal the original colour in engraved depressions where the hot liquid glaze has formed in a thicker layer and has thus persisted.



The real insect, as we can see, is black and it has almost always been represented as black in wall paintings or on papyrus. Therefore it is legitimate to ask ourselves why the scarabs of glazed steatite have been made in the most part in green or blue and also in other colours.

 

 Two hypotheses could be advanced. First, that at that time the glazing of the steatite a deep black could not be achieved. In fact we do  not have steatite scarabs with a black glaze, even though  it is known that black  faience could be  obtained by means of manganese oxide. To obtain a more realistic colour representation scarabs were made in  black or very deeply coloured stones like obsidian, black hematite and black basalt rather than blackish (unglazed) steatite.

 

 

 The second hypothesis is that the ancient master scarab makers  might have imitated the colour of other insects. Petrie (6) had already identified five species of coleoptera he thought to be be represented in the scarabs  : Catharsius, Copris, Gymnopleurus, Hypsilogenia e Venerabilis  (though  Ward objects that the last did not exist in ancient Egypt),. But all of these are black. Petrie felt he could find morphologic resemblances, especially in the head and the clypeus. Newberry (7) quotes only the Scarabeus sacer. Among the more recent commentators, Ward (8) provides a list of insects which, most probably would have been objects of veneration and represented as amulets. So the second hypothesis remains open. In fact Ward writes (9): scarabs were most often given a deep blue or green glazing imitating the colour of the live insect. And more (10): ...a general misconception is that Scarabeus Sacer was the only beetle honoured by Egyptian...

 

 

 A variety of coleopter,  Kheper festivus,  has a green colour and it is morphologically very similar to Scarabeus Sacer. The insect it is now found in  Zaire and in Southern Libya, but we cannot reasonably exclude that three thousand years ago it also lived in Egypt, or in any case  that it was known by ancient Egyptians.



 

 Ward (11)  writes: In reality, there were others, for example, the long, thin beetle known to the Egyptians as the ankh-beetle..., namely lengthened shaped stone amulets without incision upon the base, found in predynastic contexts  (Gerzean 3650-3300 B.C.). Among coleoptera those having a lengthened shield-shape, are the Buprestidae characterized by brightly coloured bodies, generally in the tones of blue and green with a metallic lustre, and represented in Egypt by twelve species (12).



So a logical conclusion could be that the ancients imitated not only the Scarabeus Sacer but also other coleoptera  or, in making a muddle, imitated its shape and gave it the colours of other insects which  also had some symbolic significance .

 

We know that black is the colour of the mud enriching khemet,  the Black Land. The Egyptians associated it with death, but also with rebirth. Red, probably obtained with copper oxide baked in a reducing atmosphere, was the colour of blood and of the inhospitable desert: it was symbol of strength, aggressiveness, anger, terror, but also victory. Green, obtained with copper oxide baked in oxidizing atmosphere was the colour of vegetation, symbolizing  the rising life.  Blue, obtained from copper oxide, was the colour of the sky, seat of the Gods and it was their symbol together with the idea of serenity, peace and calm. Blue was also the colour of water and symbolized purification and rejuvenation. White, probably obtained with tin oxide, was the sign of purity, holiness and joy. Yellow, probably obtained with iron oxide baked in oxidizing atmosphere, was the colour of the sun and gold and represented the eternal flesh of the Gods and all that is perfect and precious.

 

                                                                                                             

In conclusion we can assume that the  ancient Egyptians afforded Scarabeus Sacer, black in colour, a particular sacredness owing to the observation of its behaviour and  made its representations with different materials as a powerful amulet. The reproductions had variable degrees of realism. When the creators wanted  to be faithful to the colour, they used black materials or faience, probably because steatite could not be  glazed in black. The representations shaped like Scarabeus Sacer were then also coloured other than black and this  use of colour was likely connected with the different meanings  which ancient Egyptians gave these other colours.

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(1)   NEWBERRY P.E., "Scarabs", London 1906  84.

          (2)   WARD W.A., "Beetles in stone: The Egyptian Scarab", Biblical Archaeologist 57, n.4, 1994 190.

          (3)  Ibid: it's not clear if the liquid cover of glaze was applied in the heat plunging there the subject as deemed by Ward: ...once the scarab was fashioned, it was plunged into a hot liquid glazeSteatite is a soft stone of fine textured talc [Mg3Si4O10(OH)2]...the steatite object was then glazed... using... direct application method... Whichever glazing method was used, when fired to form the glaze, the talc is converted to enstatite (MgSiO3) and the body becomes very much harder.

  (5)  When in the stove there is an atmosphere rich in oxygen we have an oxidant baking. On the contrary, when the atmosphere is poor or deprived of oxygen we have a reducing baking.                 

  (6)    PETRIE W.M.Flinders, "Scarabs and Cylinders with Names", London 1917 5.

  (7)    NEWBERRY P.E., "Scarabs", London 1906 63.

  (8)    WARD W.A., "Studies on Scarab Seals" vol. 1 1978 appendix D 87 and foll.

  (9)    WARD W.A., "Beetles in stone: The Egyptian Scarab", Biblical Archaeologist 57, n.4, 1994 190.

(10)     Ibid 199, note 1.

 (11)    WARD W.A., "Studies on Scarab Seals" vol. 1 1978 43.

(12)     Ibid 92.       

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If you are reading these pages you may be interested in this page too: which I placed today.

12th March '10

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August 2011.

You may be interested to know about this scarab which I have now posted information about  from half way down this page>>>>>>>