An image of the scarab in Seramon’s mummy. The original was a stone carving in characteristic blue. Because the dung beetle lays its eggs in a dung ball of its own making, it became the subject of a phoenix-like myth of regeneration. In Seramon’s case, the scarab represented his thought and feelings – his identity, to be judged for purity on divine scales in the afterlife.

High-resolution scanning and image processing enabled us to re-create the hieroglyphs on the ventral face of Seramon’s scarab, which is 1.9 x 1.3 x .7 inches (48 x 32 x 18mm) in size. They represent a passage from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which the embalmers believed he would recite in the next life.