Khepri the Scarab – third in a series of bug gloves

The first bug glove design was a Stag beetle, a bug that I liked. The second bug glove design was a Weevil, a bug that I did not like so much. For the third bug glove design I chose a beetle that is worshipped as a God, Khepri the Scarab, aka the dung beetle.

Scarabaeus Sacer fingerless gloves

Scarab beetles as an insect class family Scarabaeidae have over 35,000 species. It always astounds me when I find these staggering numbers when doing research. When I think “Scarab” I immediately think Ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs, amulets, and papyrus paintings of shiny blue beetles. Digging further, I found Scarab beetles are not just dung beetles as I had thought but also include the aforementioned Stag beetle, June bugs, and of course Japanese beetles – the scourge of Canadian lawns and gardens. Luckily I don’t have a lawn, I’m one of those crazy gardeners that have flowers, bushes, veggies and moss-covered stone paths all intermixed in my front yard so I have never seen or had to battle the dreaded Japanese beetle. Not that I don’t get a wide variety of beetles that do damage. I dread the annual arrival of voraciously hungry Colorado Potato bugs and Scarlet Lily beetles, even if they are pretty.

The Scarab beetle that is part of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods is Scarabaeidae Scarabaeus sacer or more commonly known as the Sacred Scarab. These industrious little beetles will fly to manure piles of grazers like horses, cattle, and antelope and collect balls of dung usually way bigger than themselves. They then roll them to a place where they can dig an underground chamber for their dung ball and happily munch away on them. Brilliant. When the female is ready to breed she selects especially fine-textured dung to make a breeding ball, only the best poo will do, and digs an especially deep and large chamber for it. In that specially curated dung ball she lays a single large egg. She then seals it up and departs to repeat the process elsewhere. A successful female Scarabaeus sacer will produce only about half a dozen young in her life, which again is surprising when most other bugs lay hundreds of eggs.

Khepri the Scarab god of Resurrection

For the Ancient Egyptians, the Scarab became the manifestation of the god Khepri, the god of the rising sun, resurrection, and rebirth. It was believed that Khepri rolled the sun across the sky each day and pushed the sun back to the underworld each evening, just like the dung beetle mysteriously rolling its ball of dung to its underground destination. The fact that the Scarab also emerged from the dung (i.e. from nothing) also made them the perfect symbol of rebirth and resurrection. Thus, amulets and charms in the shape of the Scarab were believed to draw the god’s Khepri’s power and protection and secure the rebirth of the wearer. Scarab amulets were often placed with mummies to ensure rebirth and safe passage through the underworld. Scarab rings even became worn by Roman soldiers who were going into battle.

Eye of Horus protection symbol on fingerless gloves

So much fascinating stuff about a dung beetle! Since Scarabs were so symbolic as a protection sign, I decided to add other protection symbols to this knitting pattern. Another Ancient Egyptian symbol that immediately popped to mind was the Eye of Horus, which represented healing and well being. I’ve always been drawn to depictions of eyes on palms, like the Indian Hamsa, the girl in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad with the eye tattoo on her right palm, or the gruesome child-eater in Pan’s Labyrinth (that one gave me nightmares). Therefore I thought it would be a fun central symbol for the palm of the Scarab mittens. I still had some space left so I also added the Ankh, representing the key to life. The result, Egyptian Scarab protective gloves, in more ways than one.