Origin: Egypt
Circa: 1991 BC to 1783 BC
Dimensions: 0.825" (2.1cm) wide
Collection: Egyptian
Style: Dynasty XII
The entomological details of the top of this scarab are carefully designed and include the head and its component elements, namely, the plate, eyes, and clypeus, all of which are clearly articulated. The thorax is divided from the elytra, itself divided into two parts, by deeply scored lines, and the legs are likewise well-defined.
The bottom of our scarab is inscribed with a title and name of its owner, “The Great One of Nubia (?), [named] Sa-sobek.” The orthography of the individual hieroglyphs and their arrangement in the field find their exact correspondences in a second scarab, assigned by Petrie to his “scarabs without borders” classification, so named because there are no framing elements around the perimeter of their inscribed bottoms. All of the hieroglyphs on our scarab appear in exactly the same order and exhibit the same orthography as the scarab published by Petrie with the exception of the last sign. Our pin tail duck is replaced by a swallow in Petrie’s example. The change documents that the name of the owner of Petrie’s scarab was an individual called, “Wer-sobek.” Both that individual and our Sa-sobek were holders of the same title, “The Great One of Nubia.”

Antiquities
Ancient Egyptian