Identifying scarabs and amulets
Egyptian protective forms.
Scarabs carry inscriptions or designs on the flat underside and are pierced lengthwise for stringing. Material ranges from glazed steatite — much the commonest — to faience and hardstones.
Read the base with care but date with caution: the names of famous kings, above all Menkheperre (Thutmose III), were reproduced on scarabs for nearly a thousand years after his death as tokens of good fortune. A royal name gives an earliest date, not a date.
Winged scarabs and heart scarabs are funerary equipment, larger and often uninscribed on the base. Amulets take deity or symbol forms — the Eye of Horus, Bes, Taweret — each with its own period range of popularity.
Scarabs have been faked and re-carved since the nineteenth century. Record material, glaze colour, the base design stroke by stroke, and how the piercing was drilled; honest description outlasts optimistic attribution.
More on religious objects
Identifying pilgrim badges and ampullae