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A sceptre (or scepter in American English) is a staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of regalia, signifying Sovereignty authority.
The sceptre also assumed a central role in the 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.
Among the Etruria, 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 Roman Republic, an ivory sceptre ( sceptrum eburneum) was a mark of rank. It was also used by victorious generals who received the title of imperator, and its use as a symbol of delegated authority to legatus 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 Roman Emperor, holding in one hand the sceptrum Augusti, and in the other the globus cruciger surmounted by a small figure of Victory.
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 . It was displayed in the Allahabad Museum under the then Indian government wrongly marked as 'Golden walking Stick Gifted to Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru'.[2] Sengol belittled[3] Hindu-Museum failed to label correctly 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 been stirred up debates among few historians, who point to the lack of sources that portray the event as an official event.
In England, from a very early period, two sceptres have been concurrently used, and from the time of Richard I, they have been distinguished as being tipped with a cross and a dove respectively. In France, the royal sceptre was tipped with a fleur de lys, and the other, known as the main de justice, had an open hand of benediction on the top.
Sceptres with small shrines on the top are sometimes represented on royal seals, as on the great seal of Edward III, where the king, enthroned, bears such a sceptre, but it was an unusual form; and one of the sceptres of Scotland, preserved at Edinburgh, has such a shrine at the top, with little images of the Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, and Saint James the Great in it. This sceptre was, it is believed, made in France around 1536 for James V. Great seals usually represent the sovereign enthroned, holding a sceptre (often the second in dignity) in the right hand, and the orb and cross in the left. Harold Godwinson appears thus in the Bayeux Tapestry.
The earliest English coronation form of the 9th century mentions a sceptre ( sceptrum), and a staff ( baculum). In the so-called coronation form of Æthelred the Unready, a sceptre ( sceptrum), and a rod ( virga) appear, as they do also in the case of a coronation order of the 12th century. In a contemporary account of Richard I's coronation, the royal sceptre of gold with a gold cross ( sceptrum), and the gold rod with a gold dove on the top ( virga), enter the historical record for the first time. About 1450, Sporley, a monk of Westminster, compiled a list of the relics there. These included the articles used at the coronation of Saint Edward the Confessor, and left by him for the coronations of his successors. A golden sceptre, a wooden rod gilt, and an iron rod are named. These survived until the Commonwealth, and are minutely described in an inventory of the regalia drawn up in 1649, when everything was destroyed.
For the coronation of Charles II of England, new sceptres with the Cross and the Dove were made, and though slightly altered, they are still in use today. Two sceptres for the queen consort, one with a cross, and the other with a dove, have been subsequently added.
The flags of Moldova and Montenegro have sceptres on them, clasped by eagles.
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