Chapter VI: The Scorpions of Isis

Published: Golenischeff, _Metternichstele_ (with German translation).

Translated: Budge, _Legends of the Gods_, p. 157.

This inscription is sculptured on a round-topped stela of serpentine (?), fixed in a square pedestal. It was found at Alexandria at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was presented to Prince Metternich by Mohamed Ali in 1828.

The front, back, and sides of both stela and pedestal are sculptured with horizontal and vertical lines of inscription and with mythological figures. The stela belongs to a class of amuletic objects, usually called Cippi of Horus, which are inscribed with magical spells against all animals "biting with their mouths or stinging with their tails." This stela is the largest Cippus of Horus known. On the front is sculptured in high relief the figure of Horus represented as a naked child, standing on two crocodiles, and holding a lion, a gazelle, scorpions, and snakes in his hands. He stands within a shrine, which is surmounted by the head of Bes. Isis and Thoth, the goddesses of the South and North, and other mythological figures and emblems are within and without the shrine. Above this scene are horizontal registers filled with figures, possibly representing scenes from legends which are now lost.

The text which preserves the story of the scorpions of Isis is inscribed on the back of the tablet, ll. 48-70. The date of the stela is about 370 B.C., in the reign of Neotanebo I. of the xxxth dynasty.