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Didier asks what is this scaraboid.

15th March '10

 

It appears to be a paste scaraboid of a type manufactured at the Greek colony Naukratis, in the Nile Delta region.

 

The 7th century BC saw the revival of contacts between Greece and Egypt. Egyptian kings of the Saite dynasty began to employ Greek mercenaries in the army, while Greek goods appeared in Egypt and Egyptian goods in Greece.

 

The site of Naukratis, mentioned already by the Greek historian Herodotus, played a major role as a pivotal point of contact and exchange. Established in the late seventh century BC as a Greek trading post (emporion

 

The site was rediscovered in 1884 by Sir William Flinders Petrie  and subsequent excavations by Petrie and others produced thousands of finds, much of it pottery.

 

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The archaeological focus fell into two areas of northern and southern quarters. Found farthest south was a large Egyptian storehouse or treasury (A on sketch  below - originally identified by Petrie as the "great temenos") and just north of that a Greek mudbrick Temple of Aphrodite roughly 14. x 8m (curiously not mentioned in Herodotus' list.) Directly east of this temple was unearthed a small factory for faience scarab seals.

 

 

These were intended tofor the Greek market and are widely distributed and provide evidence of Greek trading contancts elsewhere. 

 





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Not only were many scarabs found at the factory site but also terracotta scarab moulds.

These impressions as shown below,  were made from some of these moulds housed at the Petrie Museum in London.

 

 



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Here is a close parallel for this particular scarab; which is  likely to be in a darkly coloured paste.

 



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These pages are taken with  thanks, from  Egyptian and Egyptianizing Scarabs by Andree Feghali Gorton.

 











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