30 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. XI 



(whatever that may be), hence it is the Sun God's own, hence the 

 statue of the God in HeHopohs, the City of the Sun, in the shape 

 of a cat. Horapollo says that another kind of scarab is bull- 

 formed and two horned. The apis, or sacred bull, was greatly 

 revered. There was only one at a time and a wonderful under- 

 ground city at Memphis is devoted to their mummies. Both bull 

 and bull scarab typify the two horns of the new moon. A third 

 scarab, says Horapollo, has but one horn. It suggests the sacred 

 long billed ibis, equally venerated and mummified after death. 



Manetho, an Egyptian historian and philosopher wrote much 

 about the scarabs and their significance, but his works are lost, 

 except the liberal extracts made by Pliny, the Roman naturalist. 



Representations of the scarab were made in all possible ways. 

 It was customary to carve the back like the creature itself but to 

 omit the legs, leaving the undersurface flat so that it might be en- 

 graved with signature, motto or religious text. Many were drilled 

 from end to end and strung as beads. They were set as brooches 

 or rings. Others were mounted as signets. People of wealth 

 had them carved from stone, and no stone was of too great value 

 for this use. The common people used them of baked and vitri- 

 fied clay. Much can be told of the age of a genuine scarab from 

 its constituent material. Unfortunately few of them now sold to 

 tourists are genuine. The natives have become adept in their 

 manufacture and plant them in convenient places, waiting for the 

 gullible tourist to come along and make what seems to him a 

 precious find. And yet millions and millions of them were buried 

 with the dead for thousands of years. They are of all sizes. 

 One is five feet long, carved from fine stone. Most of them are 

 rather smaller than the real insect. The earliest positively known 

 belonged to Nebka, a king of the third dynasty, somewhere be- 

 tween 3,900 and 7,000 B. C. 



The worship of the scarab never got foothold in Greece. The 

 two religions differed too widely, one being entirely personal in 

 conception of the Deities, the other based on unequalled knowl- 

 edge of astronomical mysteries. It is alluded to ironically by 

 Aristophanes, the word for its description being always Helio- 

 cantharis — the sun beetle. It was never connected with karabos 

 the Greek word for the horned beetles. The root of this word is 



