8 ROSETTA. 
CHAP, i^^ay be noticed upon the statues of Lis is yet 
V— V' — ' recognised in the features of the Egi/ptianwomen, 
and particularly in those of Rosetta, when they 
can be prevailed upon to lay aside their veils. 
Upon the sands around the city we, saw the 
ScarahtBus ScarcibiEus PUularius, or Rollino- Beetle, as it is 
Filularius. ~ 
sculptured upon the obelisks and other monu- 
ments of the country, moving before it a ball 
of dung, in which it deposits an q^^. Among 
the Egyptian antiquities preserved in the British 
Museum, there is a most colossal figure of this 
insect : it is placed upon an altar, before which 
a priest is represented kneeling. The beetle 
served as food for the ibis; its remains are 
sometimes discovered in the earthenware repo- 
sitories of those embalmed birds which are 
found at Saccara and Thebes. With the Antients 
it was a type of the Sun. We often find it 
among the characters used in hieroglyphic 
writing. As this insect appears in that season 
of the year which immediately precedes the 
inundation of the Nile, it may have been so 
represented as a symbol of the spring, or of 
fecundity, or of the Egyptian month anterior to 
the rising of the water'. The antient super- 
(1) There are other reasons for believing it to be the sign of an epocha, 
or date ; and among these may be particularly stated the manner of its 
occasional introduction in the a\ncc%oi Egi/i>tian obelisks, beginning their 
inscriptions 
