What the project is about

This project studies seals, seal-amulets and seal impressions. All of these objects come from archaeological excavations in Egypt and Sudan.

Here is what the words mean:

• A seal is a small object with a picture or a text cut into it. You press it into soft clay. It leaves a mark.
• A seal impression is the mark that the seal leaves.
• A seal-amulet is a seal that people also wore as a lucky charm.
• A scarab is a seal-amulet in the shape of a beetle. Its flat underside is called the seal face. The picture or text sits on the seal face.

Who pays for the project

The German Research Foundation (DFG) pays for the project. The money comes from two grants:

• A Heisenberg grant. Its title is “Transmission, historical references and functional classifications of the omnipresent in ancient Egyptian culture” (2025–2031).
• A research grant (in German: Sachbeihilfe). Its title is “Past and present in scarab-shaped seal-amulets from ancient Egypt and Sudan in the Third Intermediate Period and beyond” (2025–2028).

What the project wants to do

The project does more than list the objects in a catalogue. It also asks four questions:

• What are the objects made of? How were they made?
• Where and how were they used?
• How did makers use older objects as models for new ones?
• How did people see and understand these objects?

The first funding phase

The first phase looks at objects from two periods:

• the Third Intermediate Period (about 1069–664 BC)
• the Late Period (about 664–332 BC)

In the first half of the first millennium BC (about 1000–500 BC), scarabs travelled very far. They reached even the most distant parts of the Mediterranean. Some of these scarabs were made in Egypt. Others were made outside Egypt in an Egyptian style. Scholars call the second group Egyptianising.

Many different fields of archaeology want to know two things about these scarabs: where they were made, and how old they are.

But there is a problem. The scarabs found in Egypt and Sudan themselves are often recorded badly or not fully. Few researchers have studied them closely. What the project studies

The project studies the typology of scarabs found in Egypt and Sudan. Typology means sorting objects into types by their shape and their features.

The project uses three kinds of sources:

• books and articles that are already published
• material in archives
• a fresh study of objects in museums (this group of objects stands for the whole material)

The project also asks how scarab makers in Egypt and Sudan used older scarabs. The makers copied scarabs from earlier times. They also invented new types that pointed back to older models. They did this in two ways:

• They cut old-fashioned texts and pictures into the seal face.
• They also copied the three-dimensional shape of older scarabs on purpose. This means the shape of the back, the head and the legs.

The digital platform

Earlier studies looked mostly at the texts and pictures on the seal face. This project looks at the whole scarab. It also looks at the modelled shape and at small details.

The project then studies where and when each feature appears. It also separates two things: features that copy older scarabs, and features that are new.

Old excavation reports are still the main source for this material. But the plates in these reports show only part of the information. Egyptian and Sudanese scarabs hold much more.

So the project brings all its material together in one digital platform. The platform will hold:

• photographs, including new ones taken in museums
• detailed descriptions
• lists of books and articles about each object
• information about the place where each object was found

The project is also building a controlled vocabulary. This is an agreed list of words for seal features and motifs. It should make descriptions of seal clearer, more consistent, and easier to use everywhere.

The platform will be open access. This means anyone can use it for free. It should a base for sharing information inside Egyptology and with other fields. It should also help future research on Egyptian scarab-shaped seal-amulets and their impressions.