Winged scarab
Winged scarab
The scarab was a symbol of new life and resurrection. In reality it is a representation of the dung beetle. Dung beetles lay their eggs in balls of dung and push them around. The ancient Egyptians seeing larvae emerge from the dung ball thought this was new life emerging from nothing. They believed that the ball of the sun was thrust over the horizon by a cosmic beetle, Khepri. (That 50s movie, Them, about the giant ants wasn't original afterall.) Depictions of winged scarebs pushing the ball of the sun are common amuletic jewelry. Several good examples were found in Tutankamens's tomb. Evidently, Tutankamen's throne name, Nebkheprure, contains the hieroglyphic of the Khepri and several pieces found in his tomb elaborated the scareb to form the whole prenomen.
The colors used in winged scareb are traditional for an Egyptian piece of this type. The scareb is blue dumorite ( cheaper than lapis) representing the night sky and the protective arms of the sky goddess Nut . The orange beads and the poppy jasper in the strap are carnelian lookalikes. Orange/red in this piece represents power and energy to keep off the evil eye and protect the wearer. The silver-lined gold beads are a substitute for real gold ones which if an Egyptian would use if he could afford them in an amulet like this.
This piece was done in brick stitch in 11/0 seed beads and 15/0 hex beads. The wings and the place for the carved scareb are done in 11/0 seed beads. The scareb is carved dumorite. The bezel around the scareb are silver-lined gold 15/0 hex beads inn circular brick stitch. There are holes drilled in the scareb so they could have been strung into a necklace or a head pin could be inserted. The technique for making the bezel is the same as described in "Beautiful Beads" by Alexandra Kidd (1994) p 74 for the rosettes in the necklace. After the bezel was completed, using the horizontal beads of the picot edging, the scareb was sewn to the wings using Nymo B. Shown above in the link is the brick stitch pattern of the wings. The strap is done in 6/0 seed beads, poppy jasper cylinder beads and vermeil Bali beads.