This amulet in the form of a scarab is one of several Egyptian variations on the theme. The body of the beetle is stylized to the extent that the details of the head, plate, and clypeus are confined to a single zone and rely on a few ornamentally incised strokes for their articulation.

The bottom of our scarab is decorated with numerous hieroglyphs arranged into the field in a rather free-flowing design which observes, but not rigorously, certain zones. At the top, arranged obliquely in conformity with the oval contour of the scarab, are two confronted uraei, or sacred cobras, flanking an ankh-sign. Beneath their coiled bodies to the left and right is a sun disc with pendant cobra. The central image is a falcon, facing right, wearing the Red Crown and flanked on either side by a nefer-sign. Two vertical emblems of the goddess Bat close the composition at the bottom and these stand on a neb-sign, or basket, on the top center of which appears the hieroglyph for the sun rising at dawn.

The dating of our scarab to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom seems assured by the presence of the emblems of Bat, a goddess worshipped in the seventh nome, or province, of Upper Egypt who is depicted as a cow and whose cult, beginning in the Middle Kingdom, was successively subsumed by that of Hathor, the cow goddess par excellence. Bat’s association with Upper Egypt may explain why the falcon-god, Horus, is wearing the Red Crown of Upper Egypt as well. The hieroglyphs and other design elements on this base appear to be talismanic and belong to a repertoire of like images which are encountered in various compositions on other scarabs of the period.