Description
Scarab is the name of a group of dung beetles, of which the sacred dung beetle (Scarabaeus sacer) is the best known. These beetles collect dung from herbivores, such as horses and camels, which still contains a lot of undigested fiber. They then roll it into balls in which they lay their eggs. The scarab was considered a sacred animal in Egyptian mythology. The Egyptians believed the beetles arose spontaneously from dung balls, as they did not yet know that the beetle lays eggs in dung and that the larva pupates and hatches within the dung ball. In hieroglyphs, the image of a scarab represents the three consonants xpr, which Egyptologists translate as "to come into being," "to create," or "to transform." The scarab was associated with the god Khepri, whose name consists of the same consonants. Khepri was the god of the rising sun, who, as it were, created a new sun every day. The dung balls, made and rolled by the beetles, were also associated with the sun, and thus with Khepri, because of their round shape. In Egypt and in areas under Egyptian influence (such as Canaan), numerous images and other artifacts depicting scarabs have been discovered during archaeological excavations.
