On articles of furniture, on toys, on the coffins of mummies, on papyri and linen and other monuments, the scarabæus appears and sets off in a strong light, the Egyptian belief in the resurrection and re-birth of the pious dead. The very idea of the transformation is shown, by the hieroglyph of the scarab for the word _Kheper_, i.e., _to be_, to _become_, to _raise up_. One of the most urgent prayers to be found in many places, in the Book of the Dead as made by the deceased, is, that he may go out of the under-world to the higher regions of light, and have power to "go forth as a living soul, to take all the forms which may please him." Chabas says as to this: "We know that such was the principal beatitude of the elect in the Egyptian heaven; it allowed the faculty of transformation into all the universe under the form wished for." The god Khepra with folding wings symbolized these metamorphoses. It figures continually in the sepulchral paintings on the walls of the hypogea of Thebes, and it announces the second birth of the soul to the future eternal life. Some figures have the scarab over the head, sometimes in place of the head. In the Great Temple at Edfu a scarab has been found portrayed with two heads, one of a ram, the symbol of Amen, or Ammon; the hidden or mysterious highest deity of the priesthood especially of Thebes; the other of a hawk, the symbol of Horus, holding in its claws a symbol of the universe.[75] It may symbolize by this form, the rising sun and the coming of the Spring sun of the vernal equinox in the zodiacal sign of the ram, but more likely has a much deeper religious meaning.[76] Represented with the head and legs of a man the scarab was an emblem of Ptah. FOOTNOTES: [63] Unless it be the XIIth. Myer. [64] _La Galerie de l'Égypte Ancienne_, etc., by Aug. Ed. Mariette-Bey. Paris, 1878, pp. 46, 47. [65] _Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, by G. Maspero. Paris, 1886, p. 68 _et seq._ [66] Brugsch-Bey in, Egypt Under the Pharaohs. London, 1891, pp. 25, 26. As to the knowledge of the Ancient Egyptians; Comp. Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient Books, treated as a general introduction to the History of Science, by N.E. Johnson, B.A., etc. London, (1891?) Ten Years Digging in Egypt, 1881-1891, by W.M. Flinders Petrie, etc. London, 1892, pub. by The Religious Tract Society. [67] Comp. _La Morale Égyptienne_, etc., by E. Amelineau. Paris, 1892. Introd. pp. LXXXII. _et seq._, XX. _et seq. Ritual Funéraire de Pamonth_, by M. Eugène Revillout. Paris, 1889. [68] _Le Papyrus de Neb-Qed (exemplaire hiéroglyphique du Livre des Morts,) reproduit_, etc., _par_ Théodule Devéria _avec la traduction du texte par_ Paul Pierret _conservateur-adjoint du Musée Égyptien du Louvre_. Paris, 1872, pl. III., col. 13, 14, p. 3.