Ring with a Scarab Bezel
Second Intermediate Period, Dynasty 15 (about 1650–1550 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Gold and green jasper; 1.2 × 2.5 × 2.3 cm (1/2 × 1 × 7/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1892.25
Scarabs, beetle-shaped amulet seals, mounted on rings were very popular from the Middle Kingdom through the Late Period. This example can be dated by the scarab itself, the underside of which is cut with an ankh (life) sign, 𓋹, surrounded by a scroll, a pattern typical of so-called Hyksos scarabs of the Second Intermediate Period. The back of the scarab is detailed with a triple line between the wing cases (elytra), a double line that separates the body (prothorax) from the wing cases, an oval head, and a fan-shaped area at the front of the head (clypeus). Hatched lines represent the feathering on the insect’s legs.
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Additional Views of Cat. 67
Bottom of cat. 67.
Side of cat. 67.
Side of cat. 67.
Scarabs are derived from square or round button-shaped seals that appeared at the end of the Old Kingdom. Some scarabs functioned as seals, their undersides carved with the name of an administrative unit or a person’s name and title. But more frequently the scarab served as a powerful and popular amulet because the beetle, 𓆣, was the hieroglyph for the verb meaning “to come into being” or “to exist.”2
This scarab, which is pierced, is mounted on a wire allowing it to swivel to expose its decorated base. This type of mounting was very common into the Late Period (see cat. 70). The shank is composed of a wire, possibly made of gold, wrapped in a sheet of gold that was burnished and smoothed to make a hard surface while preserving the attractive spiral pattern of the gold overlay. A triangular patch of gold granulation made of six tiny beads decorates the area where the wire attaches to the shank. Similar granulation also appears on the bottom exterior of the shank.3
The interior dimension of the ring is equivalent to about a US ring size six.
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Provenance
Émile Brugsch (1842–1930), Bulaq Museum and Egyptian Antiquities Service, Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1892. 5
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 111 (ill.), 140n6.
6
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 67 Ring with a Scarab Bezel,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/73.
© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
