The Scarab
In the winter of 1994 I was inCairo. It was strange, the sunlight over the town, a shimmering gloss in yellow and gold. It was that strange light, as well as the chaotic daily life and the throngs in the streets. Together they made something with my senses. Cairo´s yellow dust everywere, in my clothes, my eyes and in my ears. On clear days you could see the fantastic silhouettes of brilliant lines meeting in the sky - the Pyramids. It all felt very unreal and very magical. And now, the revelation: In the streetmarkets at the hawkers tables, I stopped over and over again, wondering, what it was I saw. Small amuletts moulded as dung-beetles - the Scarabs.
The old Egyptians worshiped the scarab and considered it holy. The round dungballs which this form of beetle rolls in front of her to feed her children with, the Egyptians saw as a symbol for the sun. They thought that the god Chepri rolled the sun in front of him over the vault of heaven in the same manner. During the time of the New Kingdom (about 1575 - 1087 b.c.) a custom started of putting a special form of heart-.scarab into the wrappings of the dead during the mummifying process. This scarab should be weighted against the feather of truth at the last judgement. It often carried an inscription taken from the Book of the Dead "O my heart...do not give evidence against me". I felt that this surrealistic connection between holiness and dung was a good symbol for mankind. Our impossibly stubborn striving for immortality and holiness, connected with all dirt we leave around usin the form of violence, hate, evil and polution. Suddenly I realised why I had been so fascinated by those small amuletts. Now I saw a little hunched-up human body in the scarab form.
This little hunched-up figure, You or Me, who in all our struggles and striving in daily life most of all longs only for our fellow human beings conrfirmation and love. Back