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I have a strange artifact


BrandonD

Skilled Investigator
Hi, it didn't occur to me to post this on the forum until I listened to the Klaus Dona interview today. I have a strange story involving an artifact that I presently own.

My old roommates were brothers and I often went with them to visit their parents. One day as I was at their parents' house, their mother decided to show me a few large shells that her relative found while deep-sea diving in the ocean off the east coast of the US.

While showing me the shells she suddenly said, "Oh yeah, and he also found this little greek statue," and she pulled out a small statue. It definitely had no resemblance to a greek statue, but it looked exactly like a small egyptian sarcophagus. It was worn, but you could still easily see the facial features. It had a few heiroglyphics carved on the surface, and appeared to be made from a brownish stone. It also looked as though it was once covered with a jade green-colored glaze which had largely worn away.

I was amazed, and then she told me that it frightened her so I could have it!

Several years later, I happened to be working at the local science museum, and I asked some of my bosses whom I might talk to about authenticating this statue. They all suggested the director of anthropology, so I contacted this guy one day as I was working. As soon as he got the message he came up to my department and seemed very excited to inspect it, because I mentioned that it had almost an exact resemblance (in both size and design) to several small sarcophagi that they already had in their egypt exhibit.

I did not mention where it was found, because I wanted him to examine the statue on its own merits, and not based upon some preconceived notions that he might have.

We set up a specific date and time where I would bring up the statue and he would have a look at it, and he seemed very excited.

The date came and I went to his office with the artifact in a box. He was not there, I was told. He was at lunch and would be back in about an hour. I was a little miffed at this, because he had picked the time himself, but I decided that he must be one of those absent-minded professors and just waited. And waited. Hours went by and he never returned. The other people in the office didn't know where he went. I eventually left.

Afterwards he wouldn't return my phone calls. I didn't know what caused this weird turn of events, but I do vaguely recall mentioning where this statue was found to one of my bosses, and so perhaps word got around to him and he decided not to inspect it. But if that was the case, he could've at least had the decency to let me know of this conclusion.

Well that's the story. Does anyone here know of someone who is experienced in egyptology or archeology and would be willing to have a look at it?
 
My major in college was ancient history. I'm very versed in Egyptian artifacts, and sculpture.

Please post pics.
 
Tommy Allison said:
My major in college was ancient history. I'm very versed in Egyptian artifacts, and sculpture.

Please post pics.

Ok, this is a pic I took several years ago with a cheap digital camera. The pictures lose alot of the detail, such as the facial features and the heiroglyphics. I took a close-up shot of the face this morning with my new camera, but the upload cable is unavailable to me until Monday. If this pic looks intriguing enough to you guys, I'll post close-ups of the surface details on Monday.

I can't seem to get a good close-up on the heiroglyphics (which are on the lower part of the body), you can hardly see them even in the close-up pics because they are very shallowly carved into the statue. So I will describe what they look like from top to bottom: An oval that is longer vertically and a little bit squarish (like the upper-case O in the "impact" font). It is connected to a horizontal line beneath it and sort of merges with it, giving the impression of one of those mirrors that you stand up in your house. Then there is another horizontal line beneath that one, and finally there is a character that is shaped like something between an upper case "M" and the sign for pi.

<br><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/OMDuhon/artifact.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket">
 
Let me get out a couple books. I think this might be part of a larger artifact.
 
It's an ushabti, a small funerary figure. They were buried with Egyptian people as workers in the afterlife. I think Ushabti's going in with the dead started around 2000 B.C.E.

Is the figure you show around 10 centimeters tall?

With the glaze I'd hazard the guess it's faience, which is powdered quartz covered in an alkaline glaze. If you can get the text translated, it will say who's funeral it was from along with probably some mention of Osiris asking for help. I'd definitely get it looked at by someone who knows.

Now how it got to our side of the water, who knows. Could be a shipwreck. On the other hand, it could be a fake, as they have been produced as jewelry decor up to present day.

I was shocked at whats been found off the coast of MD, so who knows. Let us know who's it was if ya get that translated! ;)
 
Yes. They were also known as faiences. Back in the 1990's there were a number of mail order antiquities dealers, like the Sadeigh Galleries, who were selling these and other similar artifacts for bargain basement prices. Of course it was eventually proved that they were all modern forgeries produced in Egypt.
Establishing provenance should be fairly simple. If it does turn out to be genuine, discovering how it got here could prove to be a more difficult problem. The French and English were both known to use ancient stone artifacts as ballast in their trading ships. But so did the Romans. Good luck.
 
jritzmann said:
It's an ushabti, a small funerary figure. They were buried with Egyptian people as workers in the afterlife. I think Ushabti's going in with the dead started around 2000 B.C.E.

Is the figure you show around 10 centimeters tall?

With the glaze I'd hazard the guess it's faience, which is powdered quartz covered in an alkaline glaze. If you can get the text translated, it will say who's funeral it was from along with probably some mention of Osiris asking for help. I'd definitely get it looked at by someone who knows.

Now how it got to our side of the water, who knows. Could be a shipwreck. On the other hand, it could be a fake, as they have been produced as jewelry decor up to present day.

I was shocked at whats been found off the coast of MD, so who knows. Let us know who's it was if ya get that translated! ;)

I agree. These types of figures were often created as souveniers, too. You really need an expert to look at it, and try to date it for you...might be genuine...might be from the Travelling Tut Road Show. (I hope it's real, tho!!)
 
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