hese are in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of
New York City, it possesses a genuine and rare collection of scarabs.

A large number of scarabs bear the names of the pharaonic kings; this
is not strange when we remember that the pharaoh was Horus, Khepera,
and also a son of Ra and of Osiris. These cartouches are those of
kings of orthodox Egyptian descent, we do not find the names of the
Greek Ptolemies upon them, the Roman Emperors, as conquerors,
sometimes used them but that does not prove their abstract right to do
so.

The latest, in the collection belonging to France, is of Nectanebo the
last native pharaoh, (_circa_ 300 B.C.)

Some of them, as did those of Thotmes IIIrd, bear the inscription,
Ra-men-kheper, i.e., Ra, the sun-god establishes the future
resurrection. This is found on fully one-half of the specimens from
the XVIIIth Dynasty down.

The art of making the scarabs as I have said before, varies with the
epochs. The most elegantly finished are those of the time of the IVth
Dynasty (3733-3600 B.C.,) that of the Great Pyramids; in the XIIth
Dynasty (2466-2266 B.C.,) fine work again appears, then comes
inartistic work. Again with the XVIIIth Dynasty (1700-1433 B.C.,)
arises another period of splendor, and the art after again
deteriorating revived under the XXVIth, the Saitic Dynasty, (666-528
B.C.)

Amenophis (or Amen-hotep) IIIrd of the XVIIIth Dynasty, the Memnon of
the Greeks,[51] (_circa_ 1500-1466 B.C.,) had a number of large
scarabs made, their object was not sepulchral nor were they to be used
as talisman, but they apparently were made for the incising upon them,
of purely historical inscriptions; such monuments are exceedingly rare
and are almost limited to the time of this Pharaoh. In the great
building erected by him, now known as the Temple of Luxor, were found
four of these great inscribed scarabs. Rosellini has given copies and
explanations of two of them. Dr. Samuel Birch has given a translation
of them, which I think is subject to revision.[52] One relates to the
marriage of Amen-hotep IIIrd in the tenth year of his reign, with his
queen Thya, (Taia, or Thai;) a second relates to the same subject and
to the arrival of Thya and Gilukipa in Egypt, with 317 women; a third,
now in the Vatican, mentions a tank or sacred lake, made for the queen
Thya, in the eleventh year and third month of his reign, to celebrate
the Festival of the Waters, on which occasion he entered it, in a boat