Scarab with Script Sign Combination

Description This steatite scarab has a flat underside with a vertically arranged design with a 'Maat' and longevity/omnipresence of Amun theme composed of four signs lacking syntactical context. The design of the back is simple with unbalanced body proportions and good workmanship. The piece is carefully made. This scarab functioned as a supportive amulet and should secure life and justice. The piece could serve in this world and in the afterlife; as Amun's trigram, it should assure the support of the god. It would have originally been mounted or threaded.

Provenance Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Translation] Group of four hieroglyphic signs, which does not provide a syntactical context: Lord/all (?) - life - Maat - Lord/all (?).

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929