Commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III

rdf:langString Commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III

rdf:langString During the reign of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III hundreds of so-called memorial scarabs were issued to commemorate the deeds of the pharaoh. Such scarabs were found in several archaeological sites of the Near East, from Syria to Sudan. Over two hundred of them are known to exist in museums and collections around the world. Most of the scarabs are made of steatite painted blue or green. Their length varies between 4.7 and 11 cm, their width between 7 and 8.9 cm. Most of them are pierced for threading. On the basis of their inscriptions the scarabs can be divided into five groups (in parentheses the number of scarabs of the type found on several sites): 1. * "lion hunt scarabs" (123) 2. * "marriage scarabs" (56) 3. * "lake scarabs" (11) 4. * "bull hunt scarabs" (5) 5. * "Gilukhepa scarabs" (5) The scarabs are likely to have been made at the same time, in or after the 11th regnal year. The scarab beetle was a symbol of the sun god Khepri, and glazed materials were called tjehenet ('shining') in Egyptian, so the shining scarabs refer to the king, the dazzling Sun himself. Examples of scarabs * One of the so-called "marriage scarabs" * Marriage scarab (Vienna) * Lion hunt scarab (Vienna)