It is difficult to see any other origin for the scaraboid, or imperfect scarab form, than that afforded by the Egyptian scarabs, some of which date back to about 4000 B.C. Whether we can literally say that the scaraboid was introduced into Babylon by the Egyptians may be open to question, as the form itself appears to have been evolved by Etruscans and Greeks. Unquestionably the scaraboid was much more easily shaped than the scarab proper, and for those traders who wished large supplies for commercial purposes at a low cost, this was by no means a negligible quality. The evolution of the ring from the cylindrical seal is of course purely a matter of conjecture. Here, as is often the case in a chain or series of fossil remains, we have a succession of types which _may_ be connected with one another genetically, but which _must_ not be so connected. That is to say, we cannot prove the affirmative and can only point to a probability. Many cut and engraved stones, some of which had evidently been used as talismans, have been washed up on the shore at Alexandria, Egypt. Not all of these are completed, some being only half worked, as though the engraver had become dissatisfied with his design, or had found a flaw in the material, or that they had been lost from boats or ships. It has been conjectured that these half-completed gems were the work of household jewellers employed in the palaces of Alexandria.[571] In Mas’ûdi’s “Meadows of Gold” we read that in his time, in the tenth century A.D., there was what he terms “a fishery for precious stones” on the sea-coast near Alexandria, Egypt. To account for this he relates two bits of legend. One of them represents these fragments of precious stones as having originally adorned the richly decorated vases and vessels of Alexander the Great, which were broken up and cast into the sea by Alexander’s mother after his death. The other tale was to the effect that Alexander himself had gathered together a mass of jewels and ordered them to be thrown into the sea near the Pharos, so that its neighborhood should never be deserted; for, Mas’ûdi remarks, wherever precious stones are to be found, whether in mines or in the depths of the sea, men are sure to assemble to seek for them.[572]