Three things settle most cases: the material and how it was worked, the wear, and the paper trail. An ancient scarab is carved steatite, faience or hardstone with tool marks under magnification, a glaze worn where a finger or a cord would have rubbed it, the beetle's legs and eyes in the right places, and a base design that matches a known period. If a dealer cannot tell you where the scarab was before it reached them and will not guarantee it in writing, treat it as a reproduction until shown otherwise.

The rest of this guide explains each of those points, and why scarabs are the most copied Egyptian object of all.

What a scarab is

The scarab is the dung beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, which the Egyptians watched roll a ball of dung across the ground and took as an image of the sun god pushing the sun across the sky. The beetle's name, kheper, was also the verb "to come into being," so the scarab stood for rebirth. Egyptians wore scarabs as amulets and set them in rings from the Middle Kingdom, around 2000 BC, until the Roman period. Most are under an inch long. The flat base was carved with a design, a name or a short spell, and the whole thing was pierced lengthwise so it could be strung or mounted.

Materials

Most ancient scarabs are glazed steatite, a soft grey or tan stone that carves easily and hardens when fired. The glaze, usually green or blue, has nearly always worn off the high points and survives in the grooves, so a steatite scarab with a bright, even glaze over the whole back deserves a second look. Faience, a glazed quartz paste, was molded rather than carved, and was used for the cheaper amulets and for the large heart scarabs. Hardstone scarabs in amethyst, carnelian, jasper or green stone were made for the wealthy in the Middle Kingdom and again in the Late Period; they are heavier, cooler to the touch, and keep a polish that steatite loses.

The back and the base

On the back, an ancient carver cut the head, the clypeus (the notched front edge), the prothorax and the two wing cases with a few sure lines. The style of those lines changes by period and is one of the main ways scarabs are dated. The anatomy is also where copies give themselves away. An Egyptian carver knew the beetle and got it right: the legs run along the sides in the correct number and direction, the clypeus is notched, the eyes sit at the front corners of the head. Forgers working from pictures rather than from the insect, or from other scarabs, miss these points, and a scarab with the legs in the wrong place, too many or too few of them, or eyes drawn where they do not belong is wrong whatever the glaze looks like. The base carries the design: scroll patterns and good-luck signs in the Second Intermediate Period, royal names in the New Kingdom, longer spells on heart scarabs. One caution: the throne name of Thutmose III, Men-kheper-re, was carved on scarabs for a thousand years after his death as a lucky formula, so a scarab with his name is not necessarily from his reign, and a seller who says it is has not looked closely.

Wear and the hole

Handle a scarab and look at where a thumb would have rested and where a cord would have run through the hole. On an ancient piece those places are softened, and the hole, drilled from both ends with a bow drill, is usually slightly off-center where the two bores met and is worn smooth at the mouths. Modern copies are often drilled straight through with a machine bit, leaving a clean cylinder, and are given an all-over "antiquing" that does not follow the pattern of real handling. Under a loupe, ancient incised lines have a slightly ragged floor from the copper or flint tool; a rotary tool leaves a different track.

Why so many fakes

Scarabs have been copied since at least the 1820s, when the first tourists reached Egypt, and faience and steatite scarabs are still made by the thousand for the market in Luxor and Cairo. Some of the 19th-century copies are now old enough to have real wear of their own. This is why no single test is final. An experienced eye compares a piece against hundreds of published and excavated examples, in type, cutting, glaze and wear together, and a scarab that fails on one count is set aside however good the rest of it looks.

Provenance and the guarantee

The strongest evidence is a history: an old collection label, an auction record, a published photograph, or a dealer's invoice from decades ago. Ask for it. A reputable dealer will state what is known, say plainly what is not, and put the guarantee of authenticity in writing with a right of return. That written guarantee is worth more than any one physical test, because it means the dealer has already done the comparison and is standing behind it.

Scarabs at the gallery

The scarabs currently for sale are on the Egyptian Scarabs page, each described by material, period and base design, with provenance stated where it is known and a certificate of authenticity with every piece.