it is like a widely linked chain or
string of beads, or a loosely twisted cable, and in others like the
ornamentation known as "egg moulding."

In Egyptian scarabs the flat or under part of the stone, which is the
side engraved in intaglio, has representations of deities or
hieroglyphs; in the Etruscan, the subjects engraved in intaglio on the
base, are representations of animals, wild or domestic, or are those
derived from Egyptian, Assyrian or Babylonian sources, and after
acquaintance with the Greeks, subjects derived from early Greek myths,
especially the deeds of Herakles and of the heroes of the Trojan War,
of those of Thebes and the sports of the Palaestra.

Sometimes the name of the subject was engraved on one side of it, and
occasionally the wearer's name or a word of mystic meaning, rarely
symbols or figures of the Etruscan gods or chimaeras. The engraving is
of great service to the historian and student of the glyptic art, as
the subjects show the transition from Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian
forms and figures, to the archaic Greek and the best period of stone
engraving.

Many of the Etruscan examples have been found at Praeneste, the modern
Palestrina, and in the necropolis of Clusium; some of those found
there, have engraved on the base the lotus flower with four-winged
figures of archaic Etruscan form, the kynokephallos ape, the sacred
asp or uraeus of Egypt, the winged sun of Thebes and the bull Apis; on
others are figures copied from Assyrian originals; on others are
Herakles fighting the lion, Herakles stealing the tripod of Apollo and
discovered by the latter; Ajax and Cassandra, a Harpy, etc. Some of
these have been found in tombs and other places with the color changed
to an opaque white by the action of fire. These have been burned with
the body of their owner when he was cremated.

The Etruscans have evidently borrowed the form without caring for the
cult; there does not appear with them any mysterious, religious or
astronomical meaning, nor the veneration for it, which existed among
the old Egyptians; but no doubt, the representation was considered as
a talisman or preservative amulet and was worn as such, but in many
instances likely, only as a matter of ornament in dress.

They were pierced like those of Egypt longitudinally, and one method
of wearing them, was, by stringing them, intermingled with beads, as a
necklace, but they were also worn as a signet stone in a ring with a
swivel,