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The following work is taken in part, from an address delivered by me before, The American Numismatic and Archæological Society, at its Hall in the City of New York, on March 30th, 1893. Since that time I have been led into a train of thought, having as its basis a more philosophical treatment of the meaning of the scarabæus as a symbol, in the religious metaphysic conception of it by the Ancient Egyptians, and have added much new matter. I am convinced that at the period when we first meet with the symbol of the scarabæus in Egypt, it was already the symbol and tangible expression of an elevated religious idea, embracing that of a future life of the human soul, a resurrection of it from the dead, and most likely, of a reward or punishment to it in the future life, based on its conduct when in the terrestrial life.

We know from the inscription on the lid of the coffin of Men-kau-Ra, king of the IVth, the Memphite Dynasty, (circa 3633–3600 B.C.,) and builder of the Third Pyramid at Gizeh; that some of the most elevated conceptions of the Per-em-hru, i.e., the so-called, Book of the Dead, were at that time in existence as accepted facts. The dead one at this early period became an Osiris, living eternally. We have every reason to think, that the use of the models of the scarabæus as the symbol of the resurrection or new-birth, and the future eternal life of the triumphant or justified dead, existed as an accepted dogma, before the earliest historical knowledge we have thus far been able to acquire of the Ancient Egyptians.

It most probably ante-dated the epoch of Mena, the first historical Egyptian king. How long before his period it existed, in the present condition of our knowledge of the ancient history and thought of Egypt, it is impossible to surmise. Of the aborigines of the land of Egypt we do not know nor are we very likely to know, anything. Of the race known to us as the Egyptian we can now assert with much certainty, that it was a Caucasian people, and likely came from an original home in Asia. When the invader arrived in the valley of the Nile, he appears to have been highly civilized and to have had an elevated form of religious belief.

The oldest stelæ known, one of which is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, England, and the other in the Museum at Gizeh, Egypt; were made for the tomb of Shera, who is called on them, "a prophet" and "a royal relative." He was a priest of the period of Sent, the fifth king of the IInd Dynasty, who was living about 4000 B.C. The stele is shown by Lepsius in his Auswahl, Plate 9, and is the earliest example of a hieroglyphic inscription known. These stelæ are in the form of a false door.

Upon these stelæ of Shera, is inscribed the Egyptian prayer for the soul of the dead called, the Suten-hotep-ta, from its first words. The Suten-hotep-ta was supposed to have been delivered by divine revelation. An old text speaks of, a "Suten-hotep-ta exactly corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings, handed down by the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of God."[1] This prayer inscribed on the steles mentioned, asks that there may be granted the deceased in the other world, funeral oblations, "thousands of oxen, linen bandages, cakes, vessels of wine, incense, etc." This shows that at this very early period there was a belief in Egypt of the future life of the Ba, the responsible soul, and of the Ka, the vital soul, of the deceased. The word Ka enters into the names of kings Ka-kau, Nefer-ka-Ra, and Nefer-ka-seker of the IInd Dynasty (4133–3966 B.C.) In the same Dynasty the word Ba, the name of the responsible soul, and Baiu its plural, enter into the names Neter-Baiu and Ba-en-neter. Ab, i.e., the heart, also enters into the name of Per-ab-sen of this Dynasty. We also have Ba in the name of Mer-ba-pen, sixth king of the Ist Dynasty.

It was during the reign of king Sent, that a medical papyrus was edited which shows it was the result of years of experience. From what we have just said it is extremely likely, that the body was mummified in Egypt from the earliest period of which we have knowledge.

Manetho says that Teta, the second king of the 1st Dynasty, circa 4366 B.C., wrote a book on anatomy, and experimented with drugs or chemicals. Shesh, the mother of this king, invented a hair wash.[2]

We can from the foregoing assume with some certainty, that before the historical period in Ancient Egypt, a religious belief existed, funeral ceremonies, and an expectation of an eternal life of the soul after the death of the body of man on this earth; whether a belief in rewards or punishments to be suffered or enjoyed by the soul after such death, for actions done by man in this earthly life, existed at that time, we cannot as yet, with certainty, affirm; but it is quite likely it did. In this connection a study of the "Pyramid Texts" published by Maspero in his Recueil de Travaux, is of great value to the student.

An element of great value to the student of religions is, that the scarabæus symbol, is the earliest expression of the most ancient idea of the immortality of the soul after death that has reached our day, taking us back however to a period which may be considered as civilized and enlightened and yet, so encompassed with the mists of the past, that the mental eye of to-day cannot grasp that past with much tangibility, and giving us almost cause to think, that the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul was a remnant of an early divine revelation, or at least, an advanced instinct of early humanity; for it is a curious phase of archaic Egyptian thought, that the further we go back in our investigations of the origins of its religious ideas, the more ideal and elevated they appear as to the spiritual powers and the unseen world. Idolatry made its greatest advance subsequent to the epoch of the Ancient Empire, and progressed until it finally merged itself into the animalism of the New Empire and the gross paganism of the Greeks and Romans.

We have not yet many religious texts of the Ancient Empire that have been fully studied and made known, but those that have been, exhibit an idealism as to the Supreme Deity and a belief in the immortality of the soul, based on the pious, ethical and charitable conduct of man, which speak highly for an early very elevated thought in religious ideas.

There is however one thought which must strike the student of religions forcibly, that is the fact, that the idea of the re-birth and future eternal life of the pious and moral dead, existed among the Ancient Egyptians as an accepted dogma, long before the period in which Moses is said to have lived. Moses has been asserted both in the New Testament (Acts VII., 22), and by the so-called profane writers Philo and Josephus, to have been learned in all the wisdom and knowledge of the Egyptians of his time, yet we have not in the pages of the Pentateuch, which is usually by the theologians ascribed to him, any direct assertion of the doctrine of a future life or of an immortality of the human soul, or of a future reward or punishment in a future state of the soul. Ideas are therein set forth however, of a separation of the spiritual part of man into different divisions.

It may be, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not accepted as a religious dogma, by the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings, an apparently Asiatic race, probably Semitic, of which we have not as yet very much knowledge. It is likely that it was under the Hyksos that the Hebrew, Joseph, was advanced to high honors in Egypt, and under their kings, that the influx and increase of the Hebrew population in Egypt began and prospered.

It may be advanced with much certainty, that the Hebrew people residing in Ancient Egypt, must have been acquainted with many of the Egyptian ideas on the subject of the eternal future life of the soul of the dead, and the reward or punishment of it in that future life, for these ideas were undoubtedly widely and generally known by the Egyptian people, and were too thoroughly formulated in the active and daily life of the Ancient Egyptian population, not to have been known by the Hebrews living in daily contact with them, but the Hebrews may not have accepted them as a verity.

It may have been, that as the idea of the future existence of the soul in its perfection, was based upon the mummification and preservation of the body of the dead, so that the Ka might remain with it, and go out and revisit it in the tomb; and also, on inscriptions either on the walls of the tomb or the papyri deposited with the body; that Moses, knowing that in his wanderings and journeyings, it would be impossible to have performed those ceremonies and preliminaries necessary under the Egyptian system, for the proper burial of the corpse; its mummification and the preparation of the funeral inscriptions or papyri, considered as necessary to be inscribed on the walls of the tomb, or on the papyri, to be buried with the corpse, so as to assist the soul against the perils it was supposed it would encounter in its journey through the Underworld;[3] was therefore compelled to abandon a dogma based on preliminaries and preparations he could not, during such wanderings, have performed. This would be partly an explanation of a subject which has for many years caused much dispute among very erudite theologians.

In order to get some knowledge of the religious philosophical ideas of the Ancient Egyptians, a thorough study of the collection of papyri called, the Per-em-hru or Book of the Dead, is absolutely necessary, also the texts on the walls of the tombs of the Ancient Empire especially those found at Saqqarah. The work of M. Edouard Naville on the Per-em-hru lately published, although it refers more especially to the Theban period, is of great value in this investigation, and when it has been translated into a modern language by a thoroughly competent scholar, will be a key to open many of the now hidden but elevated ideas in the religious philosophy of the Ancient Egyptians.

The edition of the Book of the Dead which I have quoted from is that of M. Paul Pierret, conservateur of the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre, Paris, France.[4] This is founded on the Papyrus of Turin, which is of about the XXVIth Dynasty, the Saïtic period; the translator has also used in his work, the Egyptian manuscripts of the Louvre to assist in the elucidation of his readings of the Papyrus of Turin. His work is an advance on that of Dr. Samuel Birch, given in 1867, in the Vth volume of Baron von Bunsen's work on Egypt's Place in Universal History. A new translation of the Book of the Dead is now passing through the English press, by P. Le Page Renouf, Esq., but only a few chapters thus far have been printed. Mr. Renouf's work as an Egyptologist, deserves much more attention and credit from the learned of both his own and other countries, than it has so far received.

The following among Greek and other ancient writers have mentioned the scarabæus, mostly in connection with Egypt. Orpheus, Theophrastus, Aristophanes, Pliny, Plutarch, Ælian, Clement of Alexandria, Porphyry, Horapollon, Diogenes Laertius, who cites as works in which it was mentioned, the Natural Philosophy by Manetho (circa 286–247 B.C.,) the History of the Philosophy of the Egyptians, by Hecatæus (of Abdera? circa 331 B.C.,) and the writings of Aristagoras (circa 325–300 B.C.,) Eusebius, Arnobius, Epiphanius and Ausonius.

The subject has been somewhat neglected in modern times. Two small brochures on the subject were published by Johann Joachim Bellermann, under the title of; Ueber die Scarabäen-Gemmen, nebst Versuchen die darauf befindlichen Hieroglyphen zu erklären, one in 1820, the other 1821. Another very small catalogue entitled; Scarabées Égyptiens, figurés du Musée des Antiquea de sa majesté l'Empereur, Vienne, de l'Imprimerie d'Antoine Strauss, 1824, was published in that year in Vienna. None of the above contain information of importance on the subject.

Dr. Samuel Birch published the first classified collection in his; Catalogue of the collection of Egyptian Antiquities at Alnwick Castle,[5] in which he describes 565 scarabs, signets, etc. In 1884 the Rev. W.J. Loftie published his; An Essay of Scarabs, London, small 4to, no date, 125 numbered copies printed. It contained a brief essay, pp. V-XXXII., on scarabs, and a short description of 192. His collection was purchased in 1890 by the Trustees of the British Museum. In the summer of 1876, I published in, The Evening Telegraph, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Centennial Exhibition; two Essays on Scarabæi and Cicadæ, and on those exhibited, especially those in the Egyptian Section and those in the Castellani Collection. In 1887, Dr. E.A. Wallis Budge, F.S.A., gave a description of 150 scarabs in his, Catalogue of the Egyptian Collection of the Harrow School Museum, with translations of most of the inscriptions upon them. In 1888, Dr. A.S. Murray and Mr. Hamilton Smith in their, Catalogue of Gems, gave a list of scarabs and scaraboids. In 1889 Mr. Flinders Petrie published, Historical Scarabs: A series of Drawings from the Principal Collections, Arranged Chronologically. This book has only nine small pages of description but they are valuable. In his, History of Egypt, Prof. Wiedemann has catalogued a great many scarabs. I have not seen any of the above works except that by Bellermann, that published in Vienna, and those by Loftie and Petrie, all of which I have in my Library. Since my book was printed, I have had my attention called to, The Mummy, Chapters on Egyptian Funeral Archæology, by E.A. Wallis Budge, Litt. D., F.S.A., Cambridge. At the University Press, 1893. In this p. 231 et seq., the learned author has a very interesting chapter on Scarabs.