Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia stela depicts the god Shamash holding a staff. . The
Was and other types of staves were signs of authority in
Ancient Egypt. For this reason they are often described as "sceptres", even if they are full-length staffs. One of the earliest royal sceptres was discovered in the
2nd Dynasty tomb of
Khasekhemwy in
Abydos. Kings were also known to carry a staff, and
Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on
stone vessels carrying a so-called
mks-staff. The staff with the longest history seems to be the
heqa-sceptre (the "
shepherd's crook"). The sceptre also assumed a central role in the
Mesopotamian world, and was in most cases part of the royal insignia of sovereigns and gods. This continued throughout
Mesopotamian history, as illustrated in literary and administrative texts and iconography. The Mesopotamian sceptre was mostly called
ĝidru in
Sumerian and
ḫaṭṭum in
Akkadian. The Biblical
Book of Genesis refers to the sceptre of
Judah. In the
First Persian Empire, the Biblical
Book of Esther mentions the sceptre of the
King of Persia.
Greco-Roman world Among the early
Greeks, the sceptre (,
skeptron, "staff, stick, baton") was a long staff, such as
Agamemnon wielded (
Iliad, i) or was used by respected elders (
Iliad, xviii. 46;
Herodotus 1. 196), and came to be used by judges, military leaders, priests, and others in authority. It is represented on painted vases as a long staff tipped with a metal ornament. When the sceptre is borne by
Zeus or
Hades, it is headed by a bird. It was this symbol of Zeus, the king of the gods and ruler of
Olympus, that gave their inviolable status to the
kerykes, the heralds, who were thus protected by the precursor of modern
diplomatic immunity. When, in the
Iliad,
Agamemnon sends
Odysseus to parley with the leaders of the
Achaeans, he lends him his sceptre. Among the
Etruscans, sceptres of great magnificence were used by kings and high priests. Many representations of such sceptres occur on the walls of the painted tombs of Etruria. The
British Museum, the Vatican, and the Louvre possess Etruscan sceptres of gold, elaborately and minutely ornamented. The Roman sceptre probably derived from the Etruscan. Under the
Republic, an ivory sceptre (
sceptrum eburneum) was a mark of
consular rank. It was also used by victorious generals who received the title of
imperator, and its use as a symbol of delegated authority to
legates apparently was revived in the marshal's
baton. Under the
Roman Empire, the
sceptrum Augusti was specially used by the emperors, and was often of ivory tipped with a golden
eagle. It is frequently shown on medallions of the later empire, which have on the obverse a half-length figure of the
emperor, holding in one hand the
sceptrum Augusti, and in the other the
orb surmounted by a small figure of
Victory.
India Narendra Modi installing the
Sengol sceptre in the
new Indian Parliament The codes of the just and the cruel sceptre are found in the ancient
Tamil work of
Tirukkural, dated before 5th century
CE. In its chapters 55 (
Sengol) and 56 (
Kondungol), the text deals with the just and the cruel sceptre, respectively, furthering the thought on the ethical behaviour of the ruler discussed in many of the preceding and the following chapters. The ancient treatise says it was not the king's spear but the just sceptre, known as "Sengol" in Tamil, that bound him to his people—and to the extent that he guarded them, his own good rule would guard him. It was a practice of ancient Indian kingdoms and dynasties, such as the
Chola kings, to use a symbolic sceptre during coronations. One such sceptre, the
Sengol, was presented to
Jawaharlal Nehru on 14 August 1947 by the
Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam symbolising the transfer of power as followed by Ancient
Hindu kings. It was displayed in the Allahabad Museum under the then Indian government wrongly marked as 'Golden walking Stick Gifted to Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru'. In 2023, the
government of India decided to install this gold-plated sceptre in the
newly inaugurated Indian Parliament. The presentation of the Sengol sceptre to the first Indian Prime Minister in 1947 was claimed as a 'symbol of transfer of power from British to India', which has stirred up debates among few historians, who point to the lack of sources that portray the event as an official event. ==Christendom==