Scarab Inscribed with Blessing Related to Amun

The base is inscribed with a blessing related to the sun god Amun. Scarabs bearing wishes and blessings related to divinities whose protection individuals wished to summon are particular popular during the (late) New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1295-664 B.C.). Given the limited surface on scarab bases, seal carvers were often very creative in using as few hieroglyphs and signs as possible in order to convey their message. The blessing is rendered here by means of cryptographic writing. According to ancient Egyptian cryptography, the oval with water line forms the name of the god Amun, "jmn" (perhaps from "j(w) m n", ‘island with n’). Cryptographic writing makes use of standard signs’ atypical values and introduces alternative signs based on such principles as acrophony, generally with the objective to form divine names.

Early scholarship interpreted scarabs with similar inscriptions as name scarabs, inscribed with the Egyptian personal name Amenhotep. The vigilant jackal placed at the top of the inscription would then refer to a – hitherto unspecified – title of a dignitary. However, the vigilant jackal can also be a cryptographic rendering of the name Amun, because the jackal guards the divine name of Amun on several other Egyptian seal-amulets where the "Htp" sign is absent. This suggests that the entire combination of signs on this scarab is more likely to be understood as a blessing summoning Amun’s protection.

See also MMA 14.40.763 and MMA 10.130.583 for variants.

References:

E. Drioton, La valeur cryptographique du signe représentant la barque solaire avec le disque, in Revue d'Egyptologie 12 (1960), p. 89-90.


A. Erman and H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache I, Berlin 1926, p. 87.

E. Hornung and E. Staehelin, Skarabäen und andere Siegelamulette aus Basler Sammlungen, Mainz, p. 182.



Vanessa Boschloos, Mellon Curatorial Research Specialist, 2018.

jmn Htp

(May) Amun (be) pleased

Formerly Theodore M. Davis Collection. Bequeathed to the Museum by Davis, 1915; accessioned, 1930.