Lo Scarabeo Egyptian Oracle

[Le Fanu]

Trawling for Oracles and spotted these

A new Lo Scarabeo Oracle deck by the same artist that did (among other decks) the White Cats Tarot and Rameses.

Just a heads up.

[Tiddles]

I don't like that art work. I love egyptian imagery and symbolism, but they took it and made it cheesy.

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by Tiddles

I don't like that art work. I love egyptian imagery and symbolism, but they took it and made it cheesy.

I don't like it either. Egyptian scenes should look Egyptian.

[tarot heart]

Originally Posted by Le Fanu

Trawling for Oracles and spotted these

A new Lo Scarabeo Oracle deck by the same artist that did (among other decks) the White Cats Tarot and Rameses.

Just a heads up.

Well, I think they look rather nice, soft on the eyes and not so typical of all the other Egyptian decks. I just don't particularly care for oracles, but this one has my interest! Thanks for the heads up, Le Fanu!

[BlueMistReasoning]

Has anyone been able to get a closer look at these? It's due to come out shortly. There is not much info on them.

[magpie9]

Looks good to me. I have lots of formal Egyptian decks...this is a nice change.

[Tibor]

I saw this one together with the Astrological Oracle. So far I am not interested. I am waiting for reviews, pics etc

[Mythic Silence]

I was not able to find many pictures from this deck, but I do enjoy Egyptian themes, so I went ahead and purchased it. The cards should arrive today or tomorrow, so I'll be sure to post some impressions. Severino Baraldi, I believe, is the same artist who did the Ramses Tarot of Eternity.

[Le Fanu]

oh do! And explain a little bit about the system...

[Mythic Silence]

I received the deck yesterday, looked through the cards and the little white book, then typed up this monstrous post to share with you.

The deck is in a hard box with a lift off cover. The cards fit securely and the box is high quality. The LWB is a 126 page multi-lingual mini book (6 languages). The book gives a brief introduction, some basic spreads, and then gives concise, but decent card descriptions in two parts: the meaning and advice. The meanings are "an ensemble of impressions and traditional meanings that normally and historically are attributed to the oracle cards." (More on that later)

I knew the cards had gold gilt edges, but I was not expecting the art of the cards themselves to have gold details (probably something I overlooked in the product description). In some of the cards it is subtle and attractive. In others it is distracting, flat, and to be brutally frank, tacky. For example, in some cards the gold is used on stone walls, and it can be hard to discern if the patchiness of it is meant to create texture or if some of the gold has scraped off. In others, the sky is flat gold as well.

The "goldness" is my biggest gripe, and I feel guilty to be so harsh about it, I hope I don't sound mean. I just wanted to be clear about it since I was not prepared for it. It does NOT show up in the scans I saw before buying the deck and I wanted to make sure that folks were well informed about it.

The artwork, aside from the gold, is an illustrative style with narrative content. Most cards depict scenes of "daily life" in ancient Egypt (according to the LWB, it is the Nile Valley civilization). This deck does not have closeup portraits of figures. When Egyptian gods and goddesses are depicted in the cards, it is in hieroglyphics or at least in that "traditional" Egyptian style. So if you were hoping for a card with Set sitting at a table drinking tea, pondering what kind of chaos is on his agenda, this deck will not deliver it. I don't say these things to be negative, I just want folks to know what kind of content to expect since there are so few scans. The art style, to me at least, seemed to lend itself to a non hieroglyphic portrayal of deities, and I was surprised (and yes, disappointed) that this was not the case.

The system is probably the most interesting thing about the deck because it is THOUGHTFUL. I have not gotten to study it in great detail yet, but I was pleased to see some good depth and potential. The card borders have the traditional suits on them (hearts, clubs, etc) as well as a number (1-52) and two hieroglyphic symbols. These symbols are taken from Gardiner's Sign list and are referenced in the meanings section of the LWB.

To elaborate, Gardiner's Sign List gives each glyph a letter and number, such as "B7." In the LWB the meaning of each card cites the letters and numbers of the two glyphs that appear on the border. If you look up Gardiner's Sign List you can see the meaning/phrase that is associated with the specific glyph using the letter and number code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner%27s_sign_list

The scenes that are depicted in the cards correspond with the meanings of the glyphs, or add more depth to the card's interpretation. Because the LWB is divided into so many languages, it does not include much information about this very deliberate detail of the cards, and I found it necessary to have the above link handy.

I am not well versed in playing card systems, and the LWB does not elaborate a great deal on that specific aspect. It just makes the broad statement that the meanings assigned to the cards are traditional to oracles. It does not say what historical tradition that happens to be, so please forgive me if I say something foolish. All I can really say in reference to the playing card attributions is that while some of the same keywords and themes show up that are in a petit lenormand deck (such as the loyal dog), the suit and number assignments are different. Obviously this is a 52 card deck, not a 36, but I did double check to see if there was a correspondence. Again, I do not know much of anything about playing card divination with a 52 card pack.

Overall, I would say that if you buy decks purely as a collector of artwork, this deck is for you IF you like a LOT of gold embellishments, an illustrative art style, and/or the work of Baraldi in general. The images are colorful, and the artist has good technical skill with his rendering of figures and details. If you love Egyptian themed stuff, I think this deck's most Egyptian aspect is the associated glyphs, not the artwork, but that is just my opinion. I personally did not think this deck "felt" very Egyptian when I looked at the images. Some of the figures look very European.

If the aesthetics of a deck are less important to you than the system that it uses, this is an oracle that is definitely worth a second look. The images and meanings are fairly balanced in terms of positivity and negativity, and both genders are well represented. Learning the glyph associations would definitely be an interesting study, and it would add to the quality of your work with the deck. Additionally, if you are a reader who does not like to use a specific system and prefer to analyze the images and interpret them intuitively, this deck lends itself to that very easily as well. The scenes are detailed, the activities are believable and easy to contextualize on a literal and symbolic level. There is a lot of content to work with regardless of your reading style.

I know this was really long, and I apologize for that, but I figured that since there is so little information out on this deck I should be as thorough as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to help!