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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Asian Art / Egyptian Steatite Scarab - Beetle & Locust Within Rope Border
Egypt, Second Intermediate Period. A palm-sized amulet in pale steatite, carved as the sacred dung beetle with a compact ovoid back, ridged clypeus, and legs drawn tight against the body. The flat underside carries the true message: a beetle glyph, kheper, signifying existence and becoming, paired with a locust, an insect long associated with the fertile abundance of Upper and Lower Egypt, the whole enclosed within a coiled rope border that seals the composition like a cartouche of twisted cord. Pierced longitudinally for stringing, such scarabs served as seals, amulets, and personal talismans, worn at the throat or wrist and pressed into clay to mark ownership. The beetle rolling its ball of dung offered Egyptians a daily image of the sun reborn, and so of the wearer's own hoped-for renewal. Scarabs of the Second Intermediate Period, when Hyksos rulers held the eastern Delta and Theban kings the south, are notable for their exuberant geometric and floral backs: coiled scrollwork, interlace, and rope borders of exactly this kind. The motif migrated with trade, and closely related designs turn up across the Levant and Cyprus, marking one of the most vigorous chapters of Egyptian glyptic export. The name of the beetle, kheper, punned on the verb "to come into being," making the insect a compact theological argument: what emerges from apparently inert matter carries the promise of self-generation. Steatite, soft enough to cut with a copper point and hardened by firing, was the workhorse material of these seals, usually finished with a glaze that has often weathered to the chalky white surface seen here. Item # 204300
Estimate:£227.02
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorAsian Art
Estimate:
£227.02
JARDINIERE, porslin, Simply Scandinavia, 2020-tal.
10/06/2026
£34.05
Est: £60.28
OCT 17 | 10:00 PM
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£3,392.98
AKVARELL. Illustration av Napoleon och slaget vid Leipzig 1812, Sverige
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£219.48
Est: £226.08
Zwei Hinterglasbilder, China, 20. Jh. (2).
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£29.67
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VAS, porslin, Kina, dekor i emaljfärger av figurscener, blommor och
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£22.7
Est: £60.28
