Scarabs Exhibition at the Diamonds Museum

At the Diamonds museum in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, a scarabs exhibition will be open until late April. The exhibition links the ancient Egyptian culture and the world of gems and jewelry.

The Egyptian scarabs were carved from varied gemstones, in ancient Egypt, they were small amulets that were imprinted on papyrus, walls, and manufactured from gemstones carved with gold or silver.

While the idea of an amulet in the form of a scarab raises a little smile on our face, the exhibition exposes a stunning variety of scarabs, in different color and form, including jewelry with scarabs. The scarabs at the exhibition were borrowed from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, they are made of different gemstone such as Lapis Lazuli, Red Jasper, Carnelian, etc. While today these gemstones are considered semi-expensive, in the past they were ascribed to magic virtue and the type of stone was part of the amulet’s purpose. For example, black heart scarab were burried with the deads.

The exhibition is not large and spans over three small exhibit rooms that include displays of ancient scarabs of varied sizes with different imprints in stunning colors: grey, purple, cyan, red, etc. In addition, some beautiful jewelry embedded with scarabs such as necklaces, bracelets, and rings.

Here’s a closeup on the scarabs in one of the necklaces.

Near each display there’s explanation in Hebrew and English, in addition there’s an app for the smartphone that includes detailed explanations. The app GoToArt can be downloaded ahead of time for free.

Beyond the temporal exhibition, the regular museum exhibits are displayed including information about gemstones, the steps of making diamonds from mining to selling.

There is also an area with artistics diamonds exhibits.

Information: The scarabs exhibition, the diamonds museum of Ramat Gan, 3 Shalom Zisman st. Ramat Gan. The scarabs exhibition will be open until April 29, 2016.