98 



Marvels of the Universe 



THE SACRED SCARAB 



BY H. ST. J. K. DONISTHORPE, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



The sacred beetle of the Egj'ptians was one of the insects best known to the ancients on account 

 of its curious and interesting habits. Before deahng with the facts relating to its life-history, it 

 may be as well to give a brief account of its more ancient history and the superstitions regarding 

 it. It was worshipped and regarded as sacred by the Egyptians, and its figure is to be found in 

 abundance on their paintings and amulets and carved on their tombs and monuments. Small 

 figures of the beetle in jewels and stone were made in large numbers, and often interred with the 



SACRED BEETLES. 



The Scarab having made a fine ball of food is joined by a brother who. under the guise of a helper, aims at appropriating 

 the tempting sphere : but the o\vner repulses the false friend. 



bodies of the dead to drive awaj' evil spirits. The insect itself was often placed in the coffins, and 

 sometimes it was embalmed. The Scarab was adopted as a religious symbol to represent the 

 motions of the earth and sun and a unique birth ; on account of their rolling balls of dung, and 

 of their sudden appearance, often in great numbers, on the margins of the Nile, after the annual 

 rising and falling of the water. They were considered sjTnbolical of the world on account of the 

 globular form of their pellets of dung, and from an odd notion that they rolled from sunrise to 

 sunset. As a symbol of the sun, because of the angular projections from the head resembling the 

 rays and the ball being roUed backwards with their feet whilst the beetles themselves look forward. 

 As the sun appears to proceed in the heavens in a course contrary to the signs, thus the Scarabaei 

 turn the balls towards the west, while they themselves continue to move towards the east ; the 

 first of these motions was considered to exhibit the diurnal, and the second the annual motion of 

 the earth and the planets. They chose the insect as a symbol of the moon, which divides the year 

 into months of twenty-eight days each, because they believed the pellet of the Scarabseus remained 



