Term used to refer to a beetle common in Egypt, 'scarabaeus
sacer', called 'kheper 'by the Egyptians, a word that also means
'to become'. This animal, who lays its eggs in a ball of dung,
was regarded by the Egyptians as the personification of
spontaneous life springing out of the earth. This was associated
with the sun being reborn from the earth, Khepry, often depicted
as a beetle or as a man with a beetle as a head. The way the
beetle pushed the dung ball along was seen as a parallel of the
way the sun disk crossed the sky. Representations of scarabs
were used as amulets as early as the Old Kingdom. They were
originally uninscribed, but from the Middle Kingdom on they were
used as seals with the flat underside being carved with
decorative motifs or texts. Many texts on scarabs contain the
name of a king, but as it was common to choose the name of a
famous king from the distant past, dating is often problematic.
Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty had a large number of scarabs
made with texts recording import