AN EGYPTIAN SERPENTINE HEART SCARAB NEW KINGDOM TO THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, 1550-664 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN SERPENTINE HEART SCARAB, NEW KINGDOM TO THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, 1550-664 B.C. Of ovoid form, carved in the round from a dark green serpentine of mottled tone, the beetle modelled with a rounded dorsal shield rising to a pronounced clypeus. The head is defined by a plain trapezoidal plate framed by the humped prothorax, the wing cases separated from the thorax by a clear incised line and further divided along the central axis. The elytra are worked with deep parallel striations running the length of the body, terminating cleanly at the rear. Traces of white pigment or ancient infill remain in the incisions across the head, prothorax and elytral divisions, catching the eye against the darker stone. The surface retains a soft polish overall, with mineral deposits and light surface wear consistent with age. The scarab beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, was identified by the Egyptians with the god Khepri, who rolled the sun across the sky as the beetle rolls its ball of dung, and whose name derives from the verb kheper, "to come into being". As an amulet the scarab therefore stood for regeneration, self-creation, and the renewal of life after death. The larger scarabs of this type, worked in the round without the flattened base of a seal-scarab, belong to the class of heart scarabs, placed on the breast of the deceased over the mummified heart. Their function is set out in Chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead, in which the heart is enjoined not to testify against its owner during the weighing of the heart before Osiris. Heart scarabs of this scale were customarily inscribed on the underside with the relevant spell and the name of the deceased, and were often mounted in gold and suspended on the mummy by a chain. Serpentine and the related green stones, together with basalt, schist and green jasper, were the materials specifically prescribed for heart scarabs in the funerary literature, the green colour carrying associations of vegetation, resurrection and the renewal of Osiris. The choice of a dark green stone here is not incidental but a requirement of the object's ritual function, and its selection places the piece within the mainstream of high-status funerary equipment produced from the New Kingdom onward, when the heart scarab became a standard element of elite burial assemblages and continued in use through the Third Intermediate Period. This scarab exemplifies the sculptural clarity of the Egyptian heart scarab in hardstone, where the naturalistic anatomy of the beetle is reduced to a small number of confidently cut planes and the ritual purpose of the object is expressed through the material as much as through the form. Dimensions: Length: 4cm

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