COLEOPTERA. 



a ring and worn by the soldiers, as a token of homage to that power who disposed of the 

 fate of battles;* and sculptured on astronomical tables, or on columns,! it expressed the 

 divine wisdom which regulates the universe and enlightens man. 



* Authors quote a doubtful passage in Horapollo Hieroglyph, lib. 1. to support this opinion. That such 

 rinss were worn by the ancient Egyptians is beyond conjecture, many remains of them, and some very perfect, 

 have been found in the subterranean caverns and sepulchres in the Plain of Mummies near Saccara and Giza. 

 Those which we have examined are remarkable for the convexity or full relievo of the figure sculptured on 

 them; in some it is of the natural size of the insect, but generally smaller; the stone, cornelian, without a nm, 

 and turning on a swivel ring of gold. 



t Linneeus says the Scarabseus sacer is sculptured on the antique Egyptian columns in Rome. " Hie in 

 columnis antiquis Rom* exsculptus ab ^gyptiis." Syst. Nat. Does Linn^us allude to any remains of those 

 colossal obelisks which Augustus transported to Rome when he subjugated Egypt, or others of more recent 

 date ? It would increase the interest of our inquiries to learn that the Scarabteus was among the hieroglyphics, 

 on the two very ancient obelisks, carried from Heliopolis, the city of the Sun. 



We are informed by ancient writers, that the Scarabccus engraved on the astronomical tables of these 

 people, implied the divine Wisdom which governed the motion and order of the celestial bodies ; that those 

 tables were huge and massy stones or columns of granite, with the characters and figures large and highly 

 embossed ; in short, such as were supposed capable of long resistance to the corroding hand of time. Among 

 those the Scarabaeus was probably the most conspicuous, its size gigantic, and the figure frequently repeated ; 

 for this we have observed even on small Egyptian antiques. 



Various valuable remains of tablets, with figures of the Scarahceus sacer, are preserved in the British 

 Museum and other collections of antiquities in this country. Those we have examined are of various 

 descriptions, some smaller than the insect itself, others of a monstrous size. The stones on which they are 

 sculptured generally green nephritic or jade stone, or a kind of basaltes, and black marble ; the figure basso 

 relievo on a tablet or slab, but oftener in relievo, with the prominent characters of the insect very accurately 

 defined, particularly the six dentations of the clypeus and those of the tibise. The reverse of the embossed side 

 is flat and smooth, and abounds in characters altogether unknown, though, from the number of religious 

 objects of worship occasionally interspersed, we may presume they contain an ample store of the ancient 

 sacerdotal language : the most remarkable were the scarabseus, the sceptre and eye (Osiris), the human figure 

 with a dog's head (Anubis), the hawk (Horus), and the Ibis, or sacred bird. On the thorax of one fine 

 specimen we remarked four elegant figures. One of them is holding a cornucopia in the left hand, and a 

 branch in the right : this is perhaps a subordinate deity of the Nile, that river having been once found de- 

 pictured on an antique Alexandrian coin, like an aged man, holding the cornucopia, and a branch of the 

 Papyrus ; denoting its abundance and produce. (In many of the mummies which have been recently unrolled 

 in this country, carved Scarabaei have been found in various positions, especially upon the eye and breast of 

 the body. — See Pettigrew's History of Mummies. J. O. W.) 



The digression on the mythological history of this insect may be considered by some as a tedious deviation 

 from the pursuit of the naturalist ; with others we trust it will be more favourably received ; for it proves to the 

 unprejudiced mind how deeply the history of nature, and in the present instance the science of Entomology, 

 involves a most important enquiry into the first philosophical opinions of the human race. The means, how- 

 ever trifling, must not be contemned, which illumine the most sublime of all human researches— The Study of 

 Mankind. 



