Summary

Scarab of Sheshi   (  )
Artist	Egyptian (?) Canaanite (?)
Title	Scarab of Sheshi
Description	English: The ancient Egyptians believed that the dung beetle, the Scarabaeus sacer, was one of the manifestations of the sun god. Representations of these beetles were used as amulets, and for ritual or administrative purposes. This scarab is a typical example of the Second Intermediate Period. The highest point of the back is the pronotum (dorsal plate of the protorax). Two short side-notches at shoulder height define the partition between pronotum and elytron (wing cases). The prontum is somewhat asymmetrical, and the notches, which differ in shape and depth, are not aligned. The head sections consists of a trapezoidal head, rectangular eyes, trapezoidal side plates with curved outer edges, and a clypeus (front plate) with central base notch. The sides of the scarab show no extremities, but two deeply incised circular lines, which define the partition between the body and the oval shaped base. The bottom inscription contains the name and title of the King Sheshi, as well as a formula wishing him life. The hieroglyphs are deeply carved and somewhat clumsy. The layout is somewhat unbalanced, and the top and bottom signs collide with the borderline. The scarab is longitudinally pierced, was originally mounted or threaded, and used as an amulet. It should secure the existence and divine monarchy for this king, and provide its private owner with his royal patronage. There are many scarabs with the name of king Sheshi (e.g. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, 42.17 and 42.26), which were found in Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine. Nevertheless, there are no other monuments or historical records with his name. It is possible that the throne name of Sheshi was Maat-ib-Re, and scarabs with this name were similar popular and widespread. The identification of Sheshi with a Hyksos rulers or one of the Hyksos vassals is likely, but not positive. Furthermore, some scholars considered interpreting the name as a writing variant of the name of the well-known Hyksos ruler Apepi.
Date	between 1648 and 1539 BC date QS:P571,-1500-00-00T00:00:00Z/6,P1319,-1648-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,-1539-00-00T00:00:00Z/9 (Second Intermediate; Hyksos)
Medium	light beige steatite (originally glazed)
Dimensions	length: 1.6 cm (0.6 in); height: 0.7 cm (0.2 in); width: 1.2 cm (0.4 in) dimensions QS:P2043,1.6U174728 dimensions QS:P2048,0.7U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,1.2U174728
Collection	Walters Art Museum    Native name Walters Art Museum Location Baltimore, United States of America Coordinates 39° 17′ 48″ N, 76° 36′ 58″ W   Established 1934  Website thewalters.org Authority file : Q210081 VIAF: 128918374 ISNI: 000000040373611X ULAN: 500279110 LCCN: no00096900 GND: 16029354-6 WorldCat institution QS:P195,Q210081
Accession number	42.15
Place of creation	Palestine (?)
Object history	Prof. Newberry (?) Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1911, by purchase (?) 1931: bequeathed to Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters
Credit line	Acquired by Henry Walters, 1911 (?)
Inscriptions	[Translation] Birth name of King Sheshi with "solar filiations": Son of Re: Sheshi, may he live forever.
Source	Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork
Permission (Reusing this file)	This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page. The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by a Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2012021710000834. If you have questions about the archived correspondence, please use the VRT noticeboard. Ticket link: https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2012021710000834 Find other files from the same ticket:
Other versions

Licensing

This file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the Walters Art Museum as part of a cooperation project. All artworks in the photographs are in public domain due to age. The photographs of two-dimensional objects are also in the public domain. Photographs of three-dimensional objects and all descriptions have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License. In the case of the text descriptions, copyright restrictions only apply to longer descriptions which cross the threshold of originality. العربيَّة | English | français | italiano | македонски | русский | sicilianu | +/−

Object

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

	This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.
	This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse

Photograph

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Attribution: Walters Art Museum

You are free:

• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 truetrue

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue