scarab
- Museum number
- EA66508
- Description
-
Mould-made scarab in Egyptian blue; back with well-modelled clypeus, prothorax division indicated with single line, elytra with double line and humeral callosities by tick; flattened profile; legs feathered at front and clearly modelled with undercut triangle at side; underside incised with representation of figure on chariot drawn by a horse, with one arm drawn back to hurl spear, while other arm holding reins; wheels now abraded out, originally with four spokes (?); longitudinally pierced; paste dark blue in colour, of hard, coarse texture.
- Production date
- 600 BC-570 BC (mainly)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 1.50 centimetres
-
Thickness: 0.60 centimetres
-
Width: 1.10 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Charioteer is a theme found on scarabs made in Egyptian blue, produced at the “Scarab Factory” (on its various productions, see Webb forthcoming). This specimen belongs a type which was widely distributed in the Mediterranean area, particularly in Eastern Greece, and Southern Russia (Gorton 1996, 121-127, type XXXIV, subtype A1-9, see especially A7 for this piece). This group varies in style with other animal representations on Naukratite scarabs and scaraboids - animals with more elongated bodies, finer incisions - giving the impression that they are of better workmanship (Gorton 1996, 122). Egyptian blue scarabs depicting the same scene were discovered in Sardinia and Ibiza (Gorton 1996, 122-123, A2-3).
Gorton, A.F. 1996, Egyptian and Egyptianizing scarabs: a typology of steatite, faience, and paste scarabs from Punic and other Mediterranean sites, Oxford.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1886, Naukratis. Part I, 1884–5 (Third Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), London.
Webb, V. forthcoming, Faience finds from Naukratis and their implication for the chronology of the site, in R. Thomas (ed.) forthcoming. Naukratis in Context I: The Nile Delta as a Landscape of Connectivity. Proceedings of the First Naukratis Project Workshop held at The British Museum 16th – 17th December 2011.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Rather fair, though very worn
- Acquisition date
- 1886
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA66508
- Registration number
- 1886,0401.1684