Engraved Scarab with Two Rams Butting Heads (Main View, front)

This scarab gem is engraved with two curly-haired rams butting heads, while a bird flies overhead to the left. Certain features of the decoration relate the scarab to a series of gems most likely produced in East Greece and referred to as the “Sphinx and Youth Group I.” The treatment of the rams’ legs and use of stippling are characteristic. The hatched exergue is another shared feature, although this is not exclusive to the group.

Greek gem carving changed dramatically in form, materials, and technique in the-mid 500s B.C. One of these changes was the introduction of the scarab, with its back carved like a beetle and its flat surface an intaglio. They were usually pierced and worn either as a pendant or attached to a metal hoop and worn as a ring, with the beetle side facing out and the intaglio surface resting against the finger. When serving as a seal, the ring was removed, the scarab swiveled, and the intaglio design was pressed into soft clay or wax to identify and secure property.

The scarab form originally derived from Egypt, where it had been used for seals and amulets for centuries. Certain features of Greek scarabs, however, such as the form of the beetle and the hatching around the intaglio motif, show the influence of Phoenician models, which the Greeks probably saw on Cyprus.