1.The reader must understand, however, that not all Egyptian scarabs were used as seals. Some, but a very small number compared to the seal class, were used as amulets, and a few, like medals, were cut to commemorate historical events. The amulet class will be dealt with in another volume; the medal-like series is included in the present work (see pp. 170-178.)

2. khetem, “a seal,” khetem, “to close,” or “to seal up.” In Hebrew the word is ?????, which survives in the Arabic, ???????, khatim, “a signet,” or “signet ring.” The determinatives and represent a cylinder-seal, with string for suspension; Petrie, MedÛm, p. 33; cf. p. 45, figs. 18, 19, of this volume, and Griffith, Beni Hasan, III, p. 15. The intermediate form between these two signs is found in sculptures in the tomb of Tahutihetep at Bersheh (Newberry, El Bersheh, I, Pl. XX).

3.American Law Review, Vol. XXVIII, p. 25.

4.C. W. King. Hand-book of Engraved Gems, pp. 4 and 5.

5.American Law Review, Vol. XXV, p. 25.

6.De Morgan, Le tombeau royal de NÉgadah, p. 172.

7.Petrie, Royal Tombs, I, p. 26.

8.E.g., Boulac Papyrus, No. 18. A mer khetemu, “Superintendent of the storehouse,” in the land of Zaru is mentioned in the Bologna Papyrus, No. 1086, l. 11.

9.Newberry, Rekhmara, Pl. XII.

10.Rekhmara, Pl. VII, l. 3.

11.See, for instance, Griffith, Kahun Papyri, Pl. XXXVII, “Drawn out by the servant there and sealed with the seal of the servant there,” and cf. numerous entries in Boulac Papyrus, No. 18.

12.Mace, in Petrie’s Diospolis Parva, p. 51; and this has been my own experience in the graves that I have opened at Thebes.

13.See the description of the sealing up of the sarcophagus chamber of the tomb of Thothmes IV, in Carter and Newberry, The Tomb of Thoutmosis IV, p. xxx, and cf. Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (ed. Birch), Vol. III, p. 436; Herodotus, II, 121; Matthew xxvii, 66.

14.For a copy of a sealed decree of the Fifth Dynasty, see Petrie’s Abydos, II, Pl. XVIII. On the walls of two tombs at Siut (one unpublished) are inscribed a number of contracts that were concluded by the nomarchs in order to ensure certain revenues for religious services after death (see Griffith, Siut, Pls. 7 and 8, and cf. Mariette’s Abydos, II, 25, and Jeremiah xxxii, 11.

15.Cf. Isaiah xxix, 11; Daniel ix, 24, xii, 49. “Written evidence sealed,” Jeremiah xii, 10, xxxii, 11, 14, 44.

16.See Professor Sayce, in Petrie’s Hawara, Biahmu and Arsinoe, p. 29.

17.See above, p. 22, note 1.

18.Compare 1 Kings xxi, 8, and Esther iii, 10-12.

19.P.S.B.A., XIV, 436, and XV, 307.

20.Gurob Papyri, in Griffith’s Kahun Papyri, XXXIX, 1, 6.

21.Ridgeway, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. VIII, p. 158, and Vol. IX, p. 30 et seq.

22.Cf. Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (English edition), Vol. I, p. 203.

23.The ox being par excellence the pecus of Italy.

24.Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, entry No. 67.

25.Cf. “Sealing with the Signet of the King,” Daniel vi, 17; Esther iii, 12; viii, 8, 10; 1 Kings, xxi, 8.

26.Our own sovereigns, as well as those of most other European States, have been from very early times invested with a ring at their Coronation (see Archaeologia, Vol. III, p. 393), cf. The Coronation Book of Charles V of France, edited by E. S. Dewick, pp. 6, 22 and 33.

27.Compare Naville’s Deir El Bahari, III, 60.

28.In the BibliothÈque Nationale, Paris, line 7.

29.Book of the Dead, 255.

30.Palette of Ptahmes in the Louvre (No. 3026); cf. Pierret, Rec. d’inscriptions inÉdite, I, p. 93.

31.On the reading, see supra, p. 5.

32.We find, for instance, those of the per seten, or “Royal domain,” A.Z., 1888, p. 90; of the per zet, or wakf, Petrie, MedÛm, Pl. XIII; of the at af, “department of meat,” Mariette, Mon. Abyd., 290, 308; and many others.

33.See L., D., II, 4, where he carries a box of linen; cf. my Beni Hasan, I, Pl. IV, and II, Pl. XIII, where there is a khetemu ne ?enket, “Seals of the linen.” In Beni Hasan, I, Pl. XXIX, we find the corresponding feminine title , a woman who apparently had charge of the harÎm, or perhaps was a confidential female servant. A title also occurs very frequently on Egyptian monuments (Griffith, Kahun Papyri, Pl. XII, l. 1; Mariette, Mon. Abyd., 182, 183, 187; Newberry, El Bersheh, I, Pls. XX, XXIX, etc.). It seems to mean a kind of “confidential seal,” or “privy purse.”

34.L., D., II, 96.

35.L., D., II, 103 a.

36.Mariette, Cat. Abyd., 855; The Story of Sanehat, l. 300; L., D., II, El Assassif, Grab 25, c.d.

37.This title was formerly believed to signify “Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt,” but it must be pointed out that byty, in the royal title, meant “He that belongs to the bee,” or perhaps, “the Bee-keeper.” Bees were the producers of the chief of primitive luxuries, and the use of honey and the offering of it instead of wine ought probably to be considered as a survival from a prehistoric state of society in which wine was unknown (cf. Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XV, p. 21). If this meant “Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt,” we should expect to find a corresponding “Treasurer of the King of Upper Egypt,” but this title, so far as I know, never occurs.

38.In the Twelfth Dynasty and later is found the frequently recurring variant . See A.Z., 1890, p. 91.

39.Stele of Kuban, l. 11.

40.Thus we read of a “Divine Sealer of Amen” under Alexander (Rec. de travaux, XIV, p. 33); and Plutarch (II, 363 B) speaks of an Egyptian priest, [Greek: sphragistÊs], who seems to have been identical with this old Egyptian official. Cf. further on this title, Revillout, in A.Z., 1880, p. 71-3.

41.Rec. de travaux, XIV, p. 33 and 57.

42.Louvre, C. 13.

43.Rec. de travaux, VII, 115.

44.L., D., II, 18, 114, etc.

45.L., D., II, 115 b, 144 q, etc.

46.L., D., II, 18, 97 a, etc.

47.The earliest instance of this title that I know of occurs at ShÛt er Rigal, in the scene of King Antef (Eleventh Dynasty) before Neb-kheru-Ra Mentu-hetep: here the mer khetem stands immediately behind his sovereign Antef. The title also occurs in a tomb at Kasr es Sayyad, the date of which may be perhaps a little earlier than the ShÛt er Rigal graffito.

48.This title should not be confounded with the somewhat similar one , “Superintendent of the Sealers,” Beni Hasan, I, xxx. Nor is it, of course, the same as the “Superintendent Storehouses” or “depÔts” (Pap. Bologna, 1086, I, 2). It ought also perhaps to be differentiated from “Superintendent” or “Keeper of Contracts” or “Records?” although there appear to be several instances where equals .

49.Cf. the title mer net, “Governor of the (Royal) City” (see my Rekhmara, p. 18, and cf. my note in Garstang’s El Arabah, p. 32); khetem is here probably to be understood as signifying the seal par excellence, i.e., the Royal Seal.

50.For a mer khetem in (1) the Oryx nome, see Newberry, Beni Hasan, I, Pl. XXX, etc.; (2) the Hare nome, see Newberry, El Bersheh, I, Pl. XXVII; (3) the Siut nome there is a mer khetem em Saut mentioned in an unpublished tomb; (4) the Antaeopolite nome, on an unpublished fragment from the tomb of Uah-ka at Gau.

51.See Newberry, Beni Hasan, I, Pl. XXVI.

52.Ibid., Pl. XXX, cf. Pl. XIII.

53.Ibid., Pl. XXXIII.

54.Ibid., Pl. XXIX.

55.On the word kha, see the paper in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical ArchÆology, XXII, pp. 99-105.

56.See Newberry, Life of Rekhmara, Pl. IV, and p. 23, where will be found a plan of the office.

57.It is probable that already at the time of the Eleventh Dynasty there was a Chief Keeper of the (Royal) Seal, for Mariette found at Karnak a monument of a certain Khety, who is described as mer khetem em ta er zer-ef, “Keeper of the (Royal) Seal in the whole land.” Mariette, Karnak, pl. 8 j.) Of this Khety there is a statuette in the Leyden Museum, and he is certainly the same individual as we see represented behind King Antef on one of the rocks of the ShÛt er Rigal. Under the New Empire we find mentioned once a “Chief Keeper of the Seal of the Great Green Sea,” i.e., of the Mediterranean. (Capart, in Rec. de travaux, XXII, p. 106.)

58.This is seen from many inscriptions: Notably from the rock inscription of Mentu-hetep in the ShÛt er Rigal; the inscription of Nefer-hetep at Aswan (De Morgan, Cat., I, p. 17); the inscriptions of Rekhmara (Newberry, Rekhmara, Pl. III, l. 5, etc.); the scene on a slab from the tomb of a High Priest of Memphis, where the Chancellor is represented standing immediately behind the VezÎrs; and from the very powerful position of the Chancellor Bay under Ta-usert and Sa-ptah. The position of the Chancellors during the Hyksos period was also of very great importance.

59.He has been described as a kind of “Keeper of the Signet;” but his rank in the Egyptian State was much higher than that of the Scottish official. It is a position that appears to have been even greater than that of the Roman cura anulis, or “Keeper of the Imperial Seal” (Just., Hist., XLIII, 5).

60.Rekhmara, Pl. II and III.

61.Ibid., Pl. II, lines 5 and 6.

62.Stela of Sa-satet at Geneva. (MÉlanges Arch., 1875, p. 218.)

63.Griffith and Tylor, The Tomb of Paheri, Pl. IX, l. 44. For earlier tours of these officials, see several graffiti on the rocks at AswÂn, published in De Morgan’s Cat., I.

64.Stela of PÏankhy, l. 81.

65.Louvre, C. 30; Mariette, Mon. Abydos, 262, 326, etc. Cf. for the high position of the Adenu, Boulac Papyri, No. 18, Pl. XIX, 5.

66.Mariette, Mon. Abydos, 125, and De Rouge, Et. Egypt, LIII.

67.Rec. de travaux, XII, p. 50.

68.Louvre, C. 5; Mariette, Mon. Abydos, 229.

69.Lepsius, D., II, 135 h, etc.

70.Schiaparelli, Cat. Flor., 282; cf. also Pl. XIV, 2, of the present work.

71.Schiaparelli, Cat. Flor., 279.

72.For instance, in Griffith, Kahun Papyri, XIII, 21, is named a “scribe in charge of the Seal of Qesab,” a town in the Delta; cf. also Pl. XIII, 20, of this work.

73.Griffith, K.P., Pl. XIII, ll. 9-12.

74.In order to make the list complete, we must notice an am-sa ne mer khetem (Liebl., N.P., 1707), and an ari at ne sa ne per me khetem (Brit. Mus. Stela, 215).

75.Papyrus of Nu, in the Brit. Mus., No. 10477. A variant

of this title occurs in the tomb of Sebekhetep (temp. Thothmes IV), at Thebes.

76.Brit. Mus. Stela, 1012.

77.Tomb of Sebekhetep, at Thebes.

78.Rec. de travaux, XII, p. 13.

79.The work of seal engraving is mentioned as a distinct occupation in Eccles. xxxviii, 27. In Egyptian there is a verb meaning “to engrave,” “to carve.”

80.See a specimen in the Edward’s Collection at University College, London.

81.VII, 69.

82.See p. 50.

83.“On some impressions is a raised line running from top to bottom across the sign, and therefore accidental. This could only be produced by a split in the seal, and such is very likely to occur in wood.” Petrie, R.T., I, p. 24.

84.Of King Qa. Petrie, R.T., II, Pl. XII, 5.

85.See p. 59.

86.See p. 59, fig. 42.

87.Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1897, pp. 366-372.

88.Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1897, vide p. 366-372.

89.“Allied or perhaps derivative figures may be seen in the pigmy or embryonic form of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris and its offshoots, and the Phoenician Pataecus (a parallel but variant type is seen in Bes), but there can be no question that the type seen on these early cylinders is the direct reflection of that which appears at a very early date upon those of Chaldea.” A. J. Evans, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1897, p. 369.

90.See Pl. V, fig. 3.

91.See Pl. VI, figs. 1, 2, etc.

92.See Pl. VI, fig. 13.

93.See Pl. VI, figs. 2, 3, 4, etc.

94.See Pl. VI, figs. 1, 10, etc.

95.See Pl. VII, fig. 7.

96.See Pl. VIII, fig. 10.

97.See Pl. VIII, figs. 2, 3, etc.

98.See Pl. VIII, figs. 5, 6, etc.

99.See Pl. VII, figs. 8 and 9.

100.Garstang’s MahÂsna, p. 33.

101.Perhaps even earlier.

102.See Mace, in Petrie’s Diospolis Parva, p. 39, and cf. Garstang, El MahÂsna, pp. 33 and 34.

103.For specimens beyond those figured here, see Petrie, in the Antiquary, XXXII, p. 136, and Garstang, El MahÂsna, Pl. XXXIX.

104.See Arthur Evans, in the Annual of the British School at Athens, No. VIII, p. 104.

105.The Antiquary, XXXII, p. 37.

106.“These stone buttons may eventually prove to have quite an exceptional interest in the history of Aegean art, as the direct progenitors of the lentoid beads so much affected by the Mycenaean engravers.” A. Evans, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIV, p. 335.

107.Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIV, p. 336.

108.The beetle, called in Egyptian Kheper, was the sacred emblem of the god who made all things out of clay.

109.Erman, ZaubersprÜche fÜr Mutter und Kind, p. 38.

110.P. 25.

111.This interpretation of the scarab was first given by Dr. Birch more than half a century ago, but has generally been lost sight of by archaeologists.

112.See later, p. 70, fig. 59.

113.Prof. Flinders Petrie believes that he can recognize, besides the true scarab, four other varieties of beetle: the Artharsius, Copris, Gymnoplearus and Hypselogenia.

114.Egyptian Decorative Art, pp. 18 and 19. The spiral, it should be noted, is found on certain upright and squat prehistoric pots of the sequence dating 39-64, but these are always single, not conjoined or returning spirals.

115.Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. XXI, p. 148.

116.Ibid., Vol. XIX, p. 294.

117.A small detail of this ceiling (with wrong colouring) is published in Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, Vol. I, Pl. VIII, fig. 7. Identically the same pattern occurs in a Twenty-sixth Dynasty tomb at Thebes.

118.MilchhÖfer, Die AnfÄnge der Kunst, p. 16 et seqq.; Petrie, Egyptian Decorative Art, p. 29.; Much, Die Kupferzeit, p. 55; Hall, The Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 157; A. C. Haddon, Evolution in Art, p. 141. Dr. Arthur Evans, on the contrary, believes that the spiral was first used in stonework, and only at a later date transferred to metal and other materials (Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XIII, p. 329).

119.Petrie, Egyptian Decorative Art, p. 22.

120.Among the jewellry discovered by M. de Morgan at DahshÛr (temp. Usertsen II) was an exquisite gold ring (certainly not of Egyptian manufacture), with two spirals worked on its bezel in gold wire-work. (See De Morgan, Dahchour, I, p. 68, fig. 145.) In the Ashmolean Museum is a black ware vase from Egypt of the style characteristic of the late Twelfth Dynasty deposits, which has a punctuated returning spiral ornament round the upper part of its body.

121.A. J. Evans, Primitive Pictographs, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XIV, p. 328. Cf. G. Coffey, The Origins of Prehistoric Ornament in Ireland, in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1894, 1895; and A. C. Haddon, Evolution in Art, p. 142. J. Romilly Allen, Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian Times, pp. 51-54.

122.On this place-name, see p. 172, note 1.

123.An asterisk prefixed to these descriptions means an ancient clay-impression or “sealing,” not an actual cylinder.

124.A cylinder-seal of “Amenemhat, beloved of Sebek, Lord of Anu,” is in the H.-P. Collection (Cat. 3813).

125.Nub-hetep-tha-Khred was a daughter of Amenemhat III. (De Morgan, Dahchour, I, p. 128.)

126.On this title, see Newberry, El Bersheh, I, p. 8, note 3.

127.I.e., the Judge or Chief Justice. See my Life of Rekhmara, p. 18.

128.The rings, scarabs, etc., figured from the tomb of Maket have been drawn from Prof. Petrie’s Illahun, pl. XXVI.

129.This is probably the same place-name as the Kery mentioned in the tomb of HÛy at Thebes as the southern boundary of Kush (Ethiopia) at the time of King TÛt-ankh-amen (see Pl. II). It was almost certainly the modern Gebel Barkal.

130.The position of the “district of Shetau or (Shetep)” is uncertain. The inscription merely says that the king went down stream, and that the journey took him a night to accomplish, but the name of the place from whence Amenhetep and his officers started is not recorded. Mr. Fraser (P.S.B.A., XXI, p. 157) suggests Memphis as the starting place, and the Wady TumilÂt as the scene of the hunt, and he further remarks that “except the FayÛm, there is no place that I can think of in Upper Egypt where one can imagine there were ever wild cattle.” I suspect, however, that it was from Thebes that the royal hunter set out, and that the district of Shetau (or Shetep) was one of those wadys near Keneh (just a night’s journey from Thebes down stream) which at certain times of the year contain low, but luxuriant vegetation. I have visited this district several times (in February 1896, again in December 1901, and for a third time in March 1904), and was much struck by the great quantity of vegetation which is to be seen in the desert to the east of Kuft and Keneh. There is one wady in particular which extends for some miles in a northerly direction between LegÊta and Keneh that literally abounds in low shrubs and other vegetation, far more than enough to support vast herds of wild cattle. It may here be pointed out that the ancient fauna of Egypt differed very greatly from its present fauna. Before the advent of the camel into Egypt, all the wadys of the Arabian chain of hills were plentifully stocked with game of all kinds. At Beni Hasan, El Bersheh, and many other places are represented scenes of hunting wild animals, including the lion, bubalis, etc.; and the wadys east of Keneh were celebrated as hunting grounds at the time of Thothmes III and Amenhetep II. In more than one private tomb at Thebes we have scenes of hunting which are expressly stated to have taken place “in the Ant,” i.e., the desert to the east of Kuft, and in the tomb of Men-kheper-ra-senb the superintendent of the hunting at Kuft is mentioned.