A scarab is a type of beetle, especially the sacred beetles of ancient Egypt that people treated with deep reverence and awe. These beetles, with their hard, rounded shells and distinctive shape, became one of the most important symbols in Egyptian civilization.

The ancient Egyptians noticed something fascinating about scarab beetles: they rolled balls of dung (animal waste) across the ground to use as food and as a place to lay their eggs. To the Egyptians, this behavior looked like the sun god Ra rolling the sun across the sky each day. They saw the beetle pushing its perfectly round ball and thought of the sun's daily journey from east to west, so scarabs became sacred symbols of rebirth and the cycle of life.

Egyptians carved thousands of scarab amulets from stone, often with hieroglyphic inscriptions on the flat underside. People wore these as jewelry or carried them for protection and good luck. When someone died, priests placed a large scarab amulet over the heart during mummification. These sacred beetles appeared everywhere in Egyptian art: on temple walls, in tombs, even pressed into clay as official seals.

Today, museums display ancient scarab amulets alongside mummies and pyramids, and the word scarab immediately calls to mind the mystery and grandeur of ancient Egypt.