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In ancient cultures

Several species of dung beetle, especially the sacred scarab, Scarabaeus sacer, were revered in Ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphic image of the beetle may have had existential, fictional, or ontologic significance. Images of the scarab in bone, ivory, stone, Egyptian faience, and precious metals are known from the Sixth Dynasty and up to the period of Roman rule. The scarab was of prime significance in the funerary cult of ancient Egypt. The scarab was linked to Khepri, the god of the rising sun, from the supposed resemblance of the rolling of the dung ball by the beetle to the rolling of the sun by the god. Some of ancient Egypt's neighbors adopted the scarab motif for seals of varying types. The best-known of these are the Judean LMLK seals, where eight of 21 designs contained scarab beetles, which were used exclusively to stamp impressions on storage jars during the reign of Hezekiah. Beetles are mentioned as a symbol of the sun, as in ancient Egypt, in Plutarch 's 1st century Moralia. The Greek Magical Papyri of the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD describe scarabs as an ingredient in a spell.

Pliny the Elder discusses beetles in his Natural History, describing the stag beetle: "Some insects, for the preservation of their wings, are covered with an erust (elytra)—the beetle, for instance, the wing of which is peculiarly fine and frail. To these insects a sting has been denied by Nature; but in one large kind we find horns of a remarkable length, two-pronged at the extremities, and forming pincers, which the animal closes when it is its intention to bite." The stag beetle is recorded in a Greek myth by Nicander and recalled by Antoninus Liberalis in which Cerambus is turned into a beetle: "He can be seen on trunks and has hook-teeth, ever moving his jaws together. He is black, long and has hard wings like a great dung beetle". The story concludes with the comment that the beetles were used as toys by young boys, and that the head was removed and worn as a pendant.