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SCARABS.

THE
HISTORY, MANUFACTURE AND RELIGIOUS
SYMBOLISM

OF THE

SCARABAEUS,

IN

ANCIENT EGYPT, PHOENICIA, SARDINIA,
ETRURIA, ETC.

ALSO

REMARKS ON THE LEARNING, PHILOSOPHY, ARTS, ETHICS,
PSYCHOLOGY, IDEAS AS TO THE IMMORTALITY OF
THE SOUL, ETC., OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS,
PHOENICIANS, ETC.

BY

ISAAC MYER, LL.B.

Member of the American Oriental Society. The American Numismatic
and Archaeological Society. The Numismatic and Antiquarian
Society of Philadelphia. La Societe Royale de Numismatique
de Belgique. The Oriental Club of
Philadelphia. The New York Historical
Society Historical Society of
the State of Pennsylvania,
etc.

AUTHOR OF THE QABBALAH. THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF
SOLOMON B. YEHUDAH IBN. GEBIROL, OR AVICEBRON;
THE WATERLOO MEDAL, ETC.

FOR SALE BY

EDWIN W. DAYTON,
NO. 641 MADISON AVENUE,
NEW YORK.

OTTO HARRASSOWITZ,
Querstrasse No. 14,
LEIPZIG.

EMILE BOUILLON,
No. 67, Rue de Richelieu,
PARIS.

1894.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, by
ISAAC MYER,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


ALL RIGHTS OF TRANSLATION RESERVED.




INTRODUCTION.


The following work is taken in part, from an address delivered by me
before, The American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, at its Hall
in the City of New York, on March 30th, 1893. Since that time I have
been led into a train of thought, having as its basis a more
philosophical treatment of the meaning of the scarabaeus as a symbol,
in the religious metaphysic conception of it by the Ancient Egyptians,
and have added much new matter. I am convinced that at the period when
we first meet with the symbol of the scarabaeus in Egypt, it was
already the symbol and tangible expression of an elevated religious
idea, embracing that of a future life of the human soul, a
resurrection of it from the dead, and most likely, of a reward or
punishment to it in the future life, based on its conduct when in the
terrestrial life.

We know from the inscription on the lid of the coffin of Men-kau-Ra,
king of the IVth, the Memphite Dynasty, (_circa_ 3633-3600 B.C.,) and
builder of the Third Pyramid at Gizeh; that some of the most elevated
conceptions of the _Per-em-hru_, i.e., the so-called, Book of the
Dead, were at that time in existence as accepted facts. The dead one
at this early period became an Osiris, living eternally. We have every
reason to think, that the use of the models of the scarabaeus as the
symbol of the resurrection or new-birth, and the future eternal life
of the triumphant or justified dead, existed as an accepted dogma,
before the earliest historical knowledge we have thus far been able
to acquire of the Ancient Egyptians.

It most probably ante-dated the epoch of Mena, the first historical
Egyptian king. How long before his period it existed, in the present
condition of our knowledge of the ancient history and thought of
Egypt, it is impossible to surmise. Of the aborigines of the land of
Egypt we do not know nor are we very likely to know, anything. Of the
race known to us as the Egyptian we can now assert with much
certainty, that it was a Caucasian people, and likely came from an
original home in Asia. When the invader arrived in the valley of the
Nile, he appears to have been highly civilized and to have had an
elevated form of religious belief.

The oldest stelae known, one of which is now in the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford, England, and the other in the Museum at Gizeh, Egypt; were
made for the tomb of Shera, who is called on them, "a prophet" and "a
royal relative." He was a priest of the period of Sent, the fifth king
of the IInd Dynasty, who was living about 4000 B.C. The stele is shown
by Lepsius in his _Auswahl_, Plate 9, and is the earliest example of a
hieroglyphic inscription known. These stelae are in the form of a false
door.

Upon these stelae of Shera, is inscribed the Egyptian prayer for the
soul of the dead called, the _Suten-hotep-ta_, from its first words.
The _Suten-hotep-ta_ was supposed to have been delivered by divine
revelation. An old text speaks of, a "_Suten-hotep-ta_ exactly
corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings, handed down by
the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of God."[1] This prayer
inscribed on the steles mentioned, asks that there may be granted the
deceased in the other world, funeral oblations, "thousands of oxen,
linen bandages, cakes, vessels of wine, incense, etc." This shows that
at this very early period there was a belief in Egypt of the future
life of the _Ba_, the responsible soul, and of the _Ka_, the vital
soul, of the deceased. The word _Ka_ enters into the names of kings
Ka-kau, Nefer-ka-Ra, and Nefer-ka-seker of the IInd Dynasty (4133-3966
B.C.) In the same Dynasty the word _Ba_, the name of the responsible
soul, and _Baiu_ its plural, enter into the names Neter-Baiu and
Ba-en-neter. _Ab_, i.e., the heart, also enters into the name of
Per-ab-sen of this Dynasty. We also have _Ba_ in the name of
Mer-ba-pen, sixth king of the Ist Dynasty.

It was during the reign of king Sent, that a medical papyrus was
edited which shows it was the result of years of experience. From
what we have just said it is extremely likely, that the body was
mummified in Egypt from the earliest period of which we have
knowledge.

Manetho says that Teta, the second king of the 1st Dynasty, _circa_
4366 B.C., wrote a book on anatomy, and experimented with drugs or
chemicals. Shesh, the mother of this king, invented a hair wash.[2]

We can from the foregoing assume with some certainty, that before the
historical period in Ancient Egypt, a religious belief existed,
funeral ceremonies, and an expectation of an eternal life of the soul
after the death of the body of man on this earth; whether a belief in
rewards or punishments to be suffered or enjoyed by the soul after
such death, for actions done by man in this earthly life, existed at
that time, we cannot as yet, with certainty, affirm; but it is quite
likely it did. In this connection a study of the "Pyramid Texts"
published by Maspero in his _Recueil de Travaux_, is of great value to
the student.

An element of great value to the student of religions is, that the
scarabaeus symbol, is the earliest expression of the most ancient idea
of the immortality of the soul after death that has reached our day,
taking us back however to a period which may be considered as
civilized and enlightened and yet, so encompassed with the mists of
the past, that the mental eye of to-day cannot grasp that past with
much tangibility, and giving us almost cause to think, that the
doctrine of the immortality of the human soul was a remnant of an
early divine revelation, or at least, an advanced instinct of early
humanity; for it is a curious phase of archaic Egyptian thought, that
the further we go back in our investigations of the origins of its
religious ideas, the more ideal and elevated they appear as to the
spiritual powers and the unseen world. Idolatry made its greatest
advance subsequent to the epoch of the Ancient Empire, and progressed
until it finally merged itself into the animalism of the New Empire
and the gross paganism of the Greeks and Romans.

We have not yet many religious texts of the Ancient Empire that have
been fully studied and made known, but those that have been, exhibit
an idealism as to the Supreme Deity and a belief in the immortality of
the soul, based on the pious, ethical and charitable conduct of man,
which speak highly for an early very elevated thought in religious
ideas.

There is however one thought which must strike the student of
religions forcibly, that is the fact, that the idea of the re-birth
and future eternal life of the pious and moral dead, existed among the
Ancient Egyptians as an accepted dogma, long before the period in
which Moses is said to have lived. Moses has been asserted both in the
New Testament (Acts VII., 22), and by the so-called profane writers
Philo and Josephus, to have been learned in all the wisdom and
knowledge of the Egyptians of his time, yet we have not in the pages
of the Pentateuch, which is usually by the theologians ascribed to
him, any direct assertion of the doctrine of a future life or of an
immortality of the human soul, or of a future reward or punishment in
a future state of the soul. Ideas are therein set forth however, of a
separation of the spiritual part of man into different divisions.

It may be, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not
accepted as a religious dogma, by the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings, an
apparently Asiatic race, probably Semitic, of which we have not as yet
very much knowledge. It is likely that it was under the Hyksos that
the Hebrew, Joseph, was advanced to high honors in Egypt, and under
their kings, that the influx and increase of the Hebrew population in
Egypt began and prospered.

It may be advanced with much certainty, that the Hebrew people
residing in Ancient Egypt, must have been acquainted with many of the
Egyptian ideas on the subject of the eternal future life of the soul
of the dead, and the reward or punishment of it in that future life,
for these ideas were undoubtedly widely and generally known by the
Egyptian people, and were too thoroughly formulated in the active and
daily life of the Ancient Egyptian population, not to have been known
by the Hebrews living in daily contact with them, but the Hebrews may
not have accepted them as a verity.

It may have been, that as the idea of the future existence of the soul
in its perfection, was based upon the m