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A friend of mine from college is currently employed in the Polish Museum in Switzerland, and she's recently asked me if I could identify this little historical tidbit:



She knows it is called the "Order of the Holy Scarab", and had a yellow and black ribbon which was unfortunately lost. I am stumped: I have no idea if it is some sort of military decoration, or a civilian one...but I figured that with the concentration of history buffs on this forum, someone might've seen it before and would be able to help: even identifying if it's a military decoration or not would help.

The only angle I can think of is that the museum houses artifacts donated by Poles who lived in emigration...so the scarab imagery and the crescent moon might suggest, dunno, an Egyptian decoration perhaps, from the Napoleonic campaigns?

I doubt it is from Napoleon's Egypt. For once, the ribbon colours yellow and black are not french colours, but Austrian.

Even moreso, the imaginery typically identified with Napoleon's campaign propaganda is taken from Roman triumphal depictions and does not typically use the Scarab. See here for coinage and medals.

What about the material? Carved stone?

Out of curiosity, who big is it?

Thanas wrote:What about the material? Carved stone?

According to my friend, it's gold covered metal, painted bronze and yellow. The ribbon was made of mora.

Shaw wrote:Out of curiosity, who big is it?

55x38 mm

The ribbon is pretty much a dead sure claim to it being an Austrian medal. Sadly, I heard nothing of any medal like that - maybe it was a commemorate piece for the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841)? I'll ask around, though...

Sorry to ask the obvious question - but what does the reverse look like?

Voyager989 wrote:Sorry to ask the obvious question - but what does the reverse look like?

Huh...it didn't occur to me to ask, but I will

I know there are no inscriptions or dates, but I'll see about getting a picture.

Forwarded it to an expert for Austrian medals. He called it an interesting find and promised to contact me after he had looked up a few books.

stuck it on r/askhistorians

might get something with luck.

Here's the answer from my sources:

German text wrote:Nach einstimmiger Meinung unserer Experten, können wir ausschließen das es sich bei diesem Ordenszeichen um eine offizielle Auszeichung eines Landes handelt.
Der Grundkörper ist ein umgearbeiteter Orden Simon Bolivar auf den offensichtlich das gelbe Medaillon aufgesetzt worden ist. Gelegentlich verwenden Schlarafffia Vereinigungen den Mistkäfer als Symbol. Wir würden die Auszeichung daher im Bereich Schlaraffia, Faschingsgilde, Männervereinigung etc. ansiedeln.

They are sure this is not an official medal (at least not an Austrian) - they believe it once was a Venezuelan medal, 'Simon Bolivar', that has been modified.

Looking at the presumed original medal, they probably just put black enamel over the blue ring with the name, leaving the twigs, and put the beetle over the face of Bolivar. This also explains why the beetle is askew, which I only realized now. The fact that is is made out of a medal originating in 185X obviously helped confuse the experts.

Hot damn, man! This is awesome news, I will pass this along immediately!

I would just like to take a second to pass on my friend's heartfelt thanks for your help, in the name of the entire crew of the Rapperswil Polish Musem.

I only don't understand one thing - why people here thought it was Austrian medal?

Let's take a look at this, this, this, or this. Does any of these look like Austrian medal just because it is black/yellow? Can someone tell me why would that be the case, when virtually every single country issuing modern medals, starting with Napoleon, issued different ribbon to each one? That was the point of ribbons after all - quick identification of medal from distance or replacing medal with just ribbon. So...

Was there ever country producing all medals with identical ribbon, no matter if in state colours or not? I can understand if we were talking about uniforms, as every major country had their own colour set, but medals? Why would one assume ribbons with their random colours help in any way in identification? Even in Soviet Union, that went very far with red colour on most medals, you can easily find examples with little or no red on them, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Austria basically used two ribbon patterns, yellow-black and red-white, for almost all of their medals. So chances are high you got something Austrian when it's unidentified and got a yellow-black ribbon. Even the experts thought the same, and only looked further around once they exhausted all the Austrian possibilities.

Also, Irbis, the pour le merite actually has a black and white ribbon (which has turned into yellow due to age/exposure) in your picture.

Is it too obvious to suggest that the museum in question knew who had held the medal and their service record, which would give a reasonable basis for guessing where the medal might be from? I mean, if there's a collection of medals from a person, and aside from one you can't identify they're all Austro-Hungarian, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that the unidentified one is too, especially if you also know that the guy never served overseas and didn't have contact with foreign dignitaries. Not saying this is the situation, but I doubt they assumed Austro-Hungarian provenance solely based on the colour scheme.

xt828 wrote:Is it too obvious to suggest that the museum in question knew who had held the medal and their service record, which would give a reasonable basis for guessing where the medal might be from? I mean, if there's a collection of medals from a person, and aside from one you can't identify they're all Austro-Hungarian, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that the unidentified one is too, especially if you also know that the guy never served overseas and didn't have contact with foreign dignitaries. Not saying this is the situation, but I doubt they assumed Austro-Hungarian provenance solely based on the colour scheme.

It was a donation from a private collection held by a noblewoman whose biography gave no clue whatsoever as to where it might've come from. The assumption that it was an austro-hungarian medal came from LaCroix and experts he knew, who I am inclined to believe

I''m not exactly an expert regarding medals, but Poland never used yellow-black ribbons, and almost always have the polish eagle or writing on them. It pretty sure wasn't a Polish one, and mentally venturing into neighbouring countries brought up Austria as first possible candidate. Who would have thought of a butchered Venezuelan medal?

To be fair, the carnival guild that most likely butchered is indeed of Austrian origin, so the assumption wasn't that far off.

LaCroix wrote:Austria basically used two ribbon patterns, yellow-black and red-white, for almost all of their medals. So chances are high you got something Austrian when it's unidentified and got a yellow-black ribbon. Even the experts thought the same, and only looked further around once they exhausted all the Austrian possibilities.

Indeed, but my doubts were based on the fact most other European countries had yellow/black medals, too. For one, even if you look on flag colours, you can find gold and black on German and Imperial Russian flags, too.

Thanas wrote:Also, Irbis, the pour le merite actually has a black and white ribbon (which has turned into yellow due to age/exposure) in your picture.

Yes, but the same (ribbon changing colours) could be equally true for this medal, meaning it could have other colours originally making attributing it to Austria even more dubious, IMHO.

LaCroix wrote:I''m not exactly an expert regarding medals, but Poland never used yellow-black ribbons, and almost always have the polish eagle or writing on them. It pretty sure wasn't a Polish one, and mentally venturing into neighbouring countries brought up Austria as first possible candidate. Who would have thought of a butchered Venezuelan medal?

Pure yellow-black, no, but I think there were at least two medals having yellow-black as part of the ribbon (and one dark yellow/black semi-official 1st Armoured Division Cross). And personally, I'd guess Russia first, seeing it had largest Polish population of all the occupying nations and largest number of mostly Polish units.

Also, you mean Polish Eagle/writing on medals or ribbons? If you meant ribbon, can you give me example? I can't recall most ribbons or even clasps having anything on them, did I miss any prominent examples?

Irbis wrote:Also, you mean Polish Eagle/writing on medals or ribbons? If you meant ribbon, can you give me example? I can't recall most ribbons or even clasps having anything on them, did I miss any prominent examples?

The medals, they almost always incorporate the eagle or some polish script...

LaCroix wrote:The medals, they almost always incorporate the eagle or some polish script...

Ah. I thought your "Poland never used yellow-black ribbons, and almost always have the polish eagle or writing on them" was about the ribbons. Well, eagle is very common motive, indeed, but quick supplement here - Latin writings are very common (in fact, two of highest Polish medals, Virtuti Militari and Polonia Restituta, have entirely Latin names, too) and can be found even on latest ones for Iraq/Afghanistan/African campaigns. I'd also say cross is actually more popular in Polish medals, I can name quite a few without eagle but almost all of them feature cross in some way or form, even medals made in People's Poland...