Description Winged Scarab Api
Blue faience (because of the weight: Egyptian blue?) three matching pieces, unmarked, intact
Total width appx. 185 mm, height and depth of the scarab: 68 mm x 15 mm
Late period, XXVI dynasty around 600 BC
Provenance: Collection Dr. Rotter, Salzburg 1981, private collection Austria
Characteristic for the late period, in which faith and hope for a better life in the beyond already was a little bit in the faltering, is the high esteem for amulets. One of the most popular ones was already from ancient times the scarab (ateuchus sacer). In its special appearance with spread wings it carried the name Api and was, similar to the Ba-bird, often sewn onto the mummy’s linen bandages. With its magical power it was supposed to protect the dead, warm them and give them light in the darkness of the underworld, because in the course of time Api also became a manifestation of the sun god Rê-Cheprê. In his normal form, however, he embodied the hope of rebirth. The immense need for magical amulets against all dangers of daily and otherworldly life made a fast and cheap manufacturing process necessary, for which faience was particularly suitable. In contrast to European faience, the Egyptian quartz sand ground as a basic substance contains no clay and no tin in the glaze. A particularly similar specimen can be found in the Brooklyn Museum under inv. no. 49.28.
Expert: Dr. Helmut Satzinger, Professor of Egyptology, University of Vienna
Former Keeper of ‘The Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection’, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Literature: Elizabeth Riefstahl, “Glass and Glazes”, Brooklyn 1968, Nr. 66, S. 68
Richard Fazzini, “Images for Eternity”, Brooklyn 1975, Nr. 111
“?gyptische Kunst aus dem Brooklyn Museum”, Ausstellungskatalog Berlin 1976, Nr. 86
Wilfried Seipel hrsg., “?gypten, G?tter, Gr?ber und die Kunst”, Ausstellungskatalog Linz 1989, Nr. 303
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