Background: The heart scarab
and the thin inner bark is weighted with stones and scorched with fire to flatten it out
and loss to the underside tip of nose
from distant Arabian mines near the Red Sea
acquired from the trade in the early 1970s
A large Egyptian Basalt Headrest Amulet, Late Period, ca. 664 - 332 BCE Jewelry Background: The heart scarabBefore the Third Intermediate Period, headrest amulets are found only in royal burials; Tutankhamen owned one of iron, as did Prince Hornakht and King Sheshonq II at Tanis. However, from the Saite Period onward, they are made almost exclusively of hematite or of another dark colored substitute such as basalt (such as this large example), serpentine, obsidian, or diorite. It was essentially intended to magically raise up the head of the deceased in