so they could be turned and the incised part used as a seal by
the owner.

I think it likely that the Etruscans at first, purchased the scarabs
from the Phoenician traders whose merchant ships, as I have said in
the preceding chapter, trafficked in ornaments and jewelry at an early
period, and who likely, at first, may have brought some from Egypt and
afterwards manufactured scarabs as an article of barter.

There is one peculiarity to be noted in the glyptography of the
Etruscans, the absence of a transitional period between the extremely
rude designs of the early style, made almost entirely by the use of
the drill, and the intaglios of the most beautiful finish in low
relief. Mr. King, in his work on Antique Gems, says: "While the first
class offers caricatures of men and animals, the favorite subjects
being figures throwing the discus, fawns with amphora, cows with
sucking calves, or the latter alone, the second gives us subjects
from the Greek mythology, especially scenes from Homer and the
tragedians, among which, the stories of Philoctetes and Bellerophon
occur with remarkable frequency." I think the rudely made are likely
of Etruscan or Phoenician manufacture, the finely executed of Greek.

The inscriptions on Etruscan stones are nearly always the names of the
persons represented on them. There are but few exceptions to this. We
may therefore divide Etruscan glyptography into:

I. Etruscan scarabs, with Etruscan or Assyrian subjects.

II. Etruscan scarabs, with archaic Greek subjects.

There are many more of the latter than the former. The Greek subjects
most frequently met with, refer to actions by Herakles, Perseus,
Tydeus, Theseus, Peleus, Ulysses, Achilles and Ajax.

The time of manufacture and use by the Etruscans was most probably
before the IIIrd century B.C., at which time, Etruria was conquered by
the Romans, its manufactures destroyed and its artists taken to Rome.

The Greeks borrowed the form from the Egyptians, but improved on the
engraving, which they made more natural and artistic; finally they
suppressed the insect but preserved the oval form of the base. The
Romans also adopted, it may be surmised from the Etruscans, the scarab
signet and retained its form until the later days of the Republic.
Winckelmann, says: Those with the figures or heads of Serapis or
Anubis incised upon them are of this period.[116] I think it likely,
that those with this deity upon them may go back to the period o