scarab
- Museum number
- EA66518
- Description
-
Mould-made scarab in glaze composition; simply and crudely modelled back, with clypeus indicated, too big prothorax and small elytra marked by single lines; at side, legs not understood, represented by broad incised lines forming a small triangle, but not cut away; underside with incised motif arranged horizontally representating a stylised man holding a stick to left, herding quadruped to right, probably a horse (less likely goat or cattle); longitudinally pierced; glaze lost; core yellow smooth texture; very eroded.
- Production date
- 600 BC - 570 BC (mainly)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 1.50 centimetres
-
Thickness: 0.70 centimetres
-
Width: 0.20 centimetres (perforation)
-
Width: 1.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This scarab, produced in the “Scarab Factory” (on its various productions, see Webb forthcoming), belongs to a type which was widely distributed in the Mediterranean area, especially found in Carthage, Cumae and Perachora (Gorton 1996, 114-117, type XXXII, subtype A2-27a, see especially A4 for this piece).
A second scarab discovered in Naukratis presents a similar scene: Oxford, Ashmolean Museum AN1888.205.
Gardner, E. A. 1888, Naukratis. Part II (Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), London.
Gorton, A.F. 1996, Egyptian and Egyptianizing scarabs: a typology of steatite, faience, and paste scarabs from Punic and other Mediterranean sites, Oxford.
Webb, V. forthcoming, Faience finds from Naukratis and their implications 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
- Quite poor, worn surface
- Acquisition date
- 1888
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA66518
- Registration number
- 1888,0601.56