Deux scarabées d’Orgamè/Argamum

Abstract

Two scarabs from Orgame/ Argamum. The two faience scarabs discovered at Orgame in a house dated, on the basis of a stamped amphora fragment and other fine wares, to the end of the IVth century BC are of the "Naucratite type" (Gorton 1996, type XXVIII). For the ICEM 46773, a mould representing the Scarabaeus Sacer in a naturalistic way has been used ; the Tilapia Nilotica, with a Nymphaea Caerulea in its mouth, cast on the underside, is very common on scarabs : the fish which guides and protects Rê against Apophis and which spits its own alevins, like Atoum the Creator, associated with a lotus bloom, the flower of the beginnings and of the "Gott auf der Blume" , is a strong symbol of renewal and resurrection. The ICEM 46774, cast with a simplified mould into an inferior faience, has on its backside the name of Amon, joining up, in cryptographic form, the forces of Maât, Horus and Rê, just like some other scarabs from Olbia, Carthage or Egypt, found in VIth-Vth centuries layers. These amulets, preserved during generations or made and exported at a later date than usually accepted, could fill a gap in our knowledge of the (in) direct relations between the southern and northern parts of the eastern Mediterranean in the classical period.