Scarab Beetles

 

Several kinds of beetle, most notably Scarabaeus sacer (often known as the sacred scarab), were considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians.

The picture of a beetle is used in Egyptian hieroglyphic script to signify a triliteral phonetic that Egyptologists translate as xprw or hpr(w) and means "to come into being," "to become," or "to transform." Depending on the context, the derivative term xprw or hpr(w) is translated as "shape," "transformation," "happening," "way of being," or "what has come into being." It could be significant in terms of existential, fictional, or otologic terms. The scarab was associated with Khepri, the god of the rising sun ("he who has come into being"). The dung beetle was thought to be only male-sexed and reproduced by depositing semen inside a dung ball, according to the ancients. The beetle's alleged self-creation matches that of Khepri, who builds himself from nothing. Furthermore, a dung beetle's dung ball mimics the sun.

Khepri, according to the ancient Egyptians, renewed the sun every day before rolling it above the horizon, then carried it into the other realm after sunset, only to renew it the following day. A tripartite depiction of the sun god, with the beetle as a sign of the morning sun, can be found in certain New Kingdom royal tombs. The nightly "death" and "rebirth" of the sun is depicted in the astronomical ceiling of Ramses VI's tomb as the sun being swallowed by Nut, goddess of the sky, and re-emerging from her womb as Khepri.

The scarab is a symbol of metamorphosis, renewal, and resurrection that appears frequently in ancient Egyptian religious and funerary art.