The Heart Scarab

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The Heart Scarab

The Weighing of the heart
For the Egyptians of the New Kingdom, life after death began with a perilous journey from burial tomb to the Halls of Judgment. On this journey the dead were beset by crocodile demons, and evil beings. If successful in reaching the realm of the Gods, they were met by Horus and led into the presence of Osiris where they were judged on the deeds of their lives. Using the spell inscribed on the back of a stone scarab, the God, Anubis, Keeper of the Balance, carefully weighed the heart. It was placed on one side of a balance scale and the feather of Ma'at was placed on the other. If the heart weighed more, it was judged unfit and cast into the hungry jaws of the crocodile-headed monster Amamet. But with the protection of the Heart Scarab, the soul would be declared True of Voice and permitted to join its ancestors in the Land of Reeds. The verdict was duly recorded by Thoth, scribe of the underworld.

This cast is a full-sized museum quality replica of an actual Egyptian heart scarab owned by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. It was cast from a mold that was made from the original artifact. The original is from the New Kingdom period. Visitors to the Museum may see the original scarab as well as many other artifacts from ancient Egypt.

Understanding Egyptian Heiroglyphs
The ancient Egyptians used a complex script that modern scholars call hieroglyphs. In their language, the ancient Egyptians called their writing medou netcher, or "god's words" and they had over 700 different hieroglyphic signs. While many people think of hieroglyphs as simply "picture writing," the system is much more complicated than that. Egyptian has an alphabet of signs with single sounds, as well as signs that may represent 2 or more sounds. Words were spelled out phonetically with these different sound signs. Another category of hieroglyphs are called determinatives. These signs were not pronounced. They were placed at the ends of words to clarify their meaning.

For example: The word for dog is written:
It is spelled tsm and pronounced chesem. The t has the sound of "ch" as in "cheerios." The dog symbol is a determinative and defines the meaning of the preceding word in a general way.

The word for time is written:
Time is spelled rk and pronounced rek. The sun symbol on the right is a determinative.

Day is written:
Day is spelled hrw, and pronounced herew. Again the sun symbol is a determinative that helps classify the word and define its meaning. Egyptians did not write vowels, so Egyptologists usually substitute an "e" in between consonants in order to make the word pronounceable.

Heart Scarabs
Beginning around 1500 B.C.E., Egyptians were buried with a collection of almost 200 magical and funerary spells commonly known today as the Book of the Dead, or in ancient Egyptian the "Chapters of Going Forth by Day in the Underworld." These texts are part of a long tradition of written funerary material that date from King Unas (2490 B.C.E.) to the time of Cleopatra (30 B.C.E.). They include the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts as well as the Book of the Dead. The spells from the Book of the Dead were usually written on papyrus and placed in the tomb along with the deceased's other funerary equipment. These texts were to protect the soul and ease its entrance into the afterlife.

The ancient Egyptians believed that after a person died, he or she was subject to a final judgment. The heart would be placed on a scale opposite a feather that represented the goddess Ma'at, a symbol of truth and goodness. If the deceased's heart was equal in weight to the feather, it indicated that he or she had not committed evil deeds during life and the deceased could enter the afterlife and live again. If the heart was heavier than the feather of Ma'at, then it was fed to a devouring demon with the head of a crocodile and the body of a lion. This person died a second and final death and could not take part in the afterlife.

Several spells from the Book of the Dead were recited, written on papyrus, or carved on amulets in order to help the deceased pass successfully into the afterlife. Specific spells were inscribed on beetle-shaped amulets (carved out of greenish stone) called heart scarabs. The Egyptians placed these heart scarabs on the chest of a mummy after mummification. The heart was one internal organ left in the body during the mummification process while most of the others were removed. The most common Book of the Dead spell found on heart scarabs is 30B, but it is not uncommon for spell 29B to appear, as in this example.

How to read the text on the Scarab
This amulet represents a scarab beetle. Scarab beetles were associated with the rebirth of the sun god Re at the dawn of the new day. The back of the amulet is decorated with a lifelike depiction of a scarab. On the þip side are eight lines of hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs are read from right to left (the opposite of English) and from the top line down.

The translation
The text on the back of the scarab comes from the Book of the Dead. It contains spell 29B, entitled: "A spell for a heart amulet of sehret stone." In the text, the deceased is identified as "the Osiris." The words in quotes are the incantation at the time of judgment.

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