Inv. Scu 22

The scarab is an image of Khepri , an Egyptian deity associated with the solar cycle and the cult of the Sun. The identification with Khepri is enhanced by the wings carved to either side of the scarab.

The work was created in Rome, presumably by Egyptian craftsmen, as suggested by the subject and the carving technique.

The relief is datable between the end of the 1st century AD and first half of the 2nd century AD, in the Domitianic (81-96) or Hadrianic period (117-138).

Along with other Egyptianizing works it was found in Via dei Fori Imperiali in the 1930s.

Most likely the fragmented slab had been part of the frieze or the architrave of a temple; recenlty, it has been put forward that the relief might have decorated a monument in the area of the Imperial fora, perhaps the Templum Pacis built by the emperor Vespasian.