This hand printed Winged Scarab Altar Cloth and other Altar Cloths are available at my Etsy Store.
I hand printed these altar cloths with a hand carved winged scarab stamp on my etching press.
The
altar cloth is double sided: shiny yellow coloured cloth and shiny
turquoise coloured cloth, both with black print. This way you get two
altar cloths in one.
Approximate Measurement: 45,5cm x 45,5cm
The Scarab represents birth and rebirth in Egyptian Mythology. The
scarab beetle is a dung beetle which means it collects up dung which it
rolls into balls. It lays its eggs inside the dung ball so that the
beetles are born out of the balls. The Egyptians saw these baby beetles
emerging from the dung balls and they made the connection with birth and
rebirth. They in fact didn’t believe there were female dung beetles and
that this process of laying the eggs in the balls created the beetle
babies. Scarab beetles were also connected to one of their solar gods:
Khepri, from the word Kheper meaning develop, come into being, to come
into existence. Khepri either took the form of a beetle or a man with a
beetle head. This connection presumably stems from the Egyptians seeing
the dung beetles pushing dung balls around and associating this with the
coming and going of the sun. The Ancient Egyptians believed that
creation began when the sun rose up from the mound: the primeval earth
which stood in the primeval waters before life started on the planet.
Some accounts say the sun emerged in the form of the scarab god Khepri.
