DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3483#0015
10
INTRODUCTION.
Engraved stones of this kind were esteemed as amulets or
preservatives from unlucky accidents, or from the malice of ene-
mies. With these the forms of divinities and the vestments of
the priests were decorated, and they were distributed as honour-
able distinctions to persons who had become eminent either in
military employments, or in the offices of civil administration.
That these stones were generally attached to the dress or to the
person, appears by their being perforated, so as to admit a string,
by which they were either suspended from the neck or fastened
on the arm.
It has excited surprise that the Etruscans, a nation so distant
from Egypt, should have had the same singular kind of engraved
stones; but the circumstance merely shews that the Etruscans
copied the Egyptians, and probably, in adopting the scarabs of
Egypt, they likewise adopted the superstitious practices pre-
vailing in that country.
From these Egyptian and Etruscan gems, which are to be
classed with the earliest productions of the glyphic or engraver's
art, we may conclude that although they carried the mechanic
operation of the art to a considerable height, they made little or
no progress in the poetical or inventive part. We must distin-
guish the real Egyptian style from the Egyptio-Grecian, which
took place when Egyptian gems were afterwards executed by
Greek artists.
We discover on these stones the divinities of the country, and
all the hieroglyphics of their symbolical writing. Among these
divinities we find their Isis, Osiris, Horus, Anubis, Harpocrates,
&c. sometimes single and sometimes united. The flower of the
INTRODUCTION.
Engraved stones of this kind were esteemed as amulets or
preservatives from unlucky accidents, or from the malice of ene-
mies. With these the forms of divinities and the vestments of
the priests were decorated, and they were distributed as honour-
able distinctions to persons who had become eminent either in
military employments, or in the offices of civil administration.
That these stones were generally attached to the dress or to the
person, appears by their being perforated, so as to admit a string,
by which they were either suspended from the neck or fastened
on the arm.
It has excited surprise that the Etruscans, a nation so distant
from Egypt, should have had the same singular kind of engraved
stones; but the circumstance merely shews that the Etruscans
copied the Egyptians, and probably, in adopting the scarabs of
Egypt, they likewise adopted the superstitious practices pre-
vailing in that country.
From these Egyptian and Etruscan gems, which are to be
classed with the earliest productions of the glyphic or engraver's
art, we may conclude that although they carried the mechanic
operation of the art to a considerable height, they made little or
no progress in the poetical or inventive part. We must distin-
guish the real Egyptian style from the Egyptio-Grecian, which
took place when Egyptian gems were afterwards executed by
Greek artists.
We discover on these stones the divinities of the country, and
all the hieroglyphics of their symbolical writing. Among these
divinities we find their Isis, Osiris, Horus, Anubis, Harpocrates,
&c. sometimes single and sometimes united. The flower of the