WALTERS-EG
Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · jewelry
Scarab with Unification Image
Description
<p>This steatite scarab has a flat underside with a vertically arranged bottom design combining the 'unification of the Two Lands' icon with a basket. The design of the scarab's back is simple, with unbalanced proportions and heavy extremities. The piece is simply made and the workmanship is slightly rough. This scarab functioned as a funerary amulet, and should secure for its owner renewal and royal protection. It would have originally been mounted or threaded.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/42.79' rel='external'>Scarab with Unification Image</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
The image shows the face of an Egyptian scarab-shaped amulet with a blue-green glazed surface and incised decorative motifs on a rounded oval field.
The artifact appears as a scarab/oval seal form photographed straight-on, filling most of the frame. The surface is light blue to turquoise with darker blue linework and visible oxidation/spalling in places, suggesting a glazed ceramic/stone with copper-based blue coloration and some damaged edges. Incisions form a central vertical motif resembling a stylized sign or schematic figure, with surrounding angular and segmented elements within an oval border. No clearly legible hieroglyphic signs, cartouches, Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text are visible at this resolution; the markings look like decorative or symbolic engraving consistent with an ‘unification image’ concept but cannot be confidently identified as specific named signs.
decorative
New Kingdom to Late Period (typical for glazed scarabs), undetermined
good
Materials
beige steatite (implied by catalogue)light blue glaze
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
English description
[Inscription] Combination of a sm3-t3.wj-icon (""unification of the Two Lands"") and a nb-basket; framed by an oval line.
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 42.79 tier-2
- Walters-id 18783 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.