Mr. Henry A. Rhind[111] writing in 1862 says: "There is now at Thebes an arch-forger of scarabæi--a certain Ali Gamooni, whose endeavors, in the manufacture of these much sought after relics, have been crowned with the greatest success. * * Scarabæi of elegant and well finished descriptions, are not beyond the range of this curious counterfeiter. These he makes of the same material as the ancients used--a close-grained, easily cut limestone--which, after it is cut into shape and lettered, receives a greenish glaze by being baked on a shovel with brass filings. Ali not content with closely imitating, has even aspired to the creative; so antiquarians must be on their guard lest they waste their time and learning, on antiquities of a very modern date."[112] FOOTNOTES: [110] _Collections d'Antiquités Égypt. au Caire_, p. 1 _et seq._ [111] Thebes; its Tombs and their Tenants, ancient and modern. London, 1862. [112] _Ibid._, pp. 253-255. Comp. Gliddon, Indigenous Races, p. 192 note. IX. PHŒNICIAN SCARABS. MANUFACTURED MOSTLY AS ARTICLE OF TRADE. USED INSCRIBED SCARABS AS SEALS IN COMMERCIAL AND OTHER TRANSACTIONS. MANY SCARABS FOUND IN SARDINIA. Archæologists frequently find in lands bordering on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, scarabs and scarabeoids, on which are engraved subjects which are Egyptian, Chaldean, Assyrian, Hittite or Persian; they were intended apparently to be used as signets, and were incised with short inscriptions in Phœnician, and sometimes, in Aramaic or in Hebrew, giving the name of the owner of the signet. These had been mostly manufactured in their entirety, as articles of trade, for sale by the ancient merchants of Tyre and Sidon, or they were Egyptian, Assyrian or other originals upon which, Phœnician lapidaries had engraved the name of the later Phœnician owner. In spite of not being an artistic people producing works of originality, this people, the great mariners and merchants of antiquity, had in an eminent degree the genius of assimilation or adaptation, and manufactured cylinders, cones, spheroids, scarabs and signets of all kinds, at first for themselves, and afterwards as an article of sale to the people with whom they traded. They also used seals in their commercial and maritime transactions, which they surrounded with the same formalities which we find in Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldea. When they dealt with these last mentioned peoples, the Phœnicians came into contact with nations, whose most unimportant transactions were put into writing by a scribe, and sealed in the presence of witnesses, with the seal of the contracting parties. They therefore in dealing with these people were obliged to have and use signets.[113][114] Such contracts have been found dating between 745-729 B.C.