118 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
Some
of the Egyptian scarabs were evidently used as talismanic gifts from
one friend to another. Two such scarabs are in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. One bears the inscription "May
Ra grant you a happy New Year," the text of the other reading as
follows: "May your name be established, may you have a son," and "May
your house flourish every day." It is a curious fact that the modern
greeting "Happy New Year" was current in Egypt probably three thousand
years ago.3
On
the Egyptian inscribed scarabs used as signets were engraved many of
the symbols to which a talismanic virtue was attributed. The uraeus
serpent, signifying death, is sometimes associated with the knot, the
so-called arikh symbol, denoting life. Often the hieroglyph for nub, gold,
appears; this symbol is a necklace with pendant beads, showing that
gold beads must have been known in Egypt in the early days when the
hieroglyph for gold was first used. All these symbolic figures, of
which a great number occur, served to impart to the signet a sacred and
auspicious quality which communicated itself to the wearer, and even to
the impression made by the seal, this in its turn acquiring a certain
magic force. Few of us would be willing to confess to a belief in the
innate power of any symbol, but the suggestive power of a symbol is as
real to-day as it ever was. Any object that evokes a high thought or
serves to emphasize a profound conviction really possesses a kind of
magical quality, since it is capable of causing an effect out of all
proportion to its intrinsic worth or its material quality.
Many scarabs and signets exist made of the artificial
'The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Mureh Collection of Egyptian antiquities; supplement to the Bulletin of the Met. Mus. of Art, January, 1910.
