Faience scarab with plain body, and just the head area defined, the legs folded to the side of the body; pierced for suspension. To the underside is the figure of a horse with hieroglyphs to the top and a rearing uraeus cobra to the front. The hieroglyphs read 'Perfect god, Lord of the Two Lands'.
 
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550 - 1292 BC.
 
Condition: Very Fine.
Length 16.75 mms (0.66 ins).
 
Provenance: Purchased during the Second World War by Major G.A.D Gordon (Royal Army Medical Corps) from Sayad Molattam, a dealer in antiquities based at Luxor Hotel Street, Luxor, licenced by the Egyptian Museum Cairo. Accompanied by a copy of the Molattam card. Mr Gordon's personal war diaries, which are now held in the Museum of Military Medicine in Aldershot, date his stay in Luxor from the 21st of February to the 1st of March 1942.
 
The uraeus cobra, known as Wadjet to the Egyptians, was the goddess of Lower Egypt and protector of the king. The horse was introduced to Egypt by the invading Hyksos people, and their rarity meant that they are associated with royalty. On seal-amulets of the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070-664 B.C.) the horse is often present as the main subject, accompanied by good-luck signs, such as the sign of life (ankh) or the hieroglyph for good and beautiful (nefer), or by royal titles. The latter association suggests that the horse is also one of the animals that symbolizes the (strength of the) pharaoh and, in extension, the sun god.