Antiquities and Ancient Art

Priceless Heritage Goes Up in Egyptian Flames; Rosetta Stone and Nefertiti Bust Safe

This past weekend's disgusting display of brutality and violence once again on the streets of Cairo, sadly has left the world a much emptier place. On the street where people were inhumanely beaten dead or unconscious with sticks and raw boots to the head, an historic building containing some of the world's great treasures burned helplessly.

The building, the Egyptian Insitute, was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte during the French Campaign in 1798. It housed 200,000 books and documents, of which an estimated 40,000 were rare manuscripts including an original copy of the ‘Description de l'Egypte’ written by the scientists of the French campaign to Egypt (1798-1801). All lost to humanity, thanks to a molotov cocktail.

Tragic fires can happen anywhere in the world as can riots as was witnessed on the streets of London this past summer. But thousands of miles away from the flames that obliterated more of the world's important historical heritage in Cairo, the bust of Nefertiti, the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and other priceless cultural objects were safe and sound. But clearly, future generations are best served when cultural patrimony is not concentrated in any single country.

Click here for an account of the fire in Egypt.

The Curious Case of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Antiquities Frontman

Zahi Hawass has been in the media a lot lately, but not in ways he is accustomed to. The supreme and ebullient promoter of all-things-ancient in Egypt (and beyond), is  more widely know outside his country's borders than its now deposed president thanks to ubiquitous appearance on shows related to Egyptian archaeology.

But Zahi is facing new challenges and a storm of criticism from those in his country who know him best.  They argue that Zahi's agenda was self-promotional, imperious and used to provide lucrative contracts, such as the bookstore in the new Cairo Museum, to friends.  His supporters say his notoriety and passion for Egyptian culture make him the best qualified for the government post he held, and depending upon the day, may still hold. 

The archeological world outside of Egypt has been fairly quiet on the topic. Zahi's magnetic personality is an instant guarantee of success in promoting an exhibition or discovery, but when his attention turns to repatriation of objects big and small his provocative and direct verbal assaults can instantly redden the faces of even the world's greatest museum directors. 

And his wrath extends far beyond what's in museums, as head of secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, he personally approves every permit for achaeological excavation within Egypt's borders.  So, it's his way or the highway.

Still, even his critics must admit that Zahi has been masterful at raising global awareness of Egypt's ancient past.  The big question, as explored in more detail in this Washington Post article, is whether Zahi's on-air personality is large enough to survive his off-air tactics.

What Recession? Antiquities in Paris Soar to Surreal Levels

It was called the Greatest Sale of the New Century but it proved to be one of the most memorable -- and successful -- of all times.  The Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge, sold February 23 - 25 by Christies Paris, was more than the dispersal of a great assembly of objets d'art, it was a grand test of the health and sustainability of the art market. 

More than 733 lots were lavishly described in French and English in the catalog which itself was a tour de force -- nearly 2-inches thick and weighing a whopping 8 pounds!  Many objects consumed multiple full-color, multi-fold pages. No marketing effort was spared to chase buyers for this sale but the question was whether would buyers chase the objects as fervently or would they merely be pecking for bargains.    

At the auction's conclusion, The Art Newspaper, the insiders periodical to the art market, victoriously proclaimed "Yves St Laurent sale smashes records despite global financial woes" in reporting the event's results. The sale generated nearly half-billion dollars (more than double pre-sale estimates) with all but a miniscule handful of lots selling.

More importantly for readers of this blog, the antiquities section of the sale -- 10 lots in all -- actually out-performed the auction overall delivering a whopping $3M in aggregate, which was nearly 400% of the low estimates total of $786K.

Let's analyze the results by lot:

687. Was a 17-inch Roman marble toros dating from the 1st-2nd Century AD. This type, with musculature indicating a contrapasto attitude, is generally referred to as a later derivative of the Greek sculptor Polykleitos. The surface was pocked, but not overly cleaned. At 46,600 Euro (est 40-60k Euro), this was the antiquities 'relative bargain' of the day.

688. An Attic red-figure krater, about 10.5 inches high, with a standard and otherwise unremarkable scenes of three females except that two were playing instruments. The seated woman was playing the lyre and one standing behind the the double aulos (a type of flute) and the third woman was holding a box and scroll. The reverse featured a typical genre scene.  Dirty surface and old repairs did not deter a buyer from paying 145,000 Euro (Est 15-25k Euro) nearly 10x the low estimate. As a comparison, a similarly dated Attic krater with a far more unusual Athenian patriotic scene from a 1970s Swiss collection sold in NY in December 2008 for $23,475. 

689. A 23-inch Roman spiral-fluted marble colum shaft from the 3rd-4th century brought a hefty 85,000 Euro (Est10-15k), most likely for its decorative appeal rather than its art historical value.

690. A 12-inch Roman marble head identified as Diomedes, the mythical King of Argos from the Trojan War, dating from the 2nd Century AD was sensitively carved but the proper right side of the face was damaged and stained. Still, it achieved 3.5x the low estimate bringing 145k Euro (Est 40-60k Euro).

691. Wonderfully carved wooden Egyptian anthropoid sarcophagus lid standing 80-inches tall and acquired by St. Laurent in 1975 from a Parisian dealer, was a relative bargain at 313,000 Euro (Est 50-70k Euro).

692. An Egyptian Late Period 9.25-inch bronze figure of a striding Mahes (the relatively rare "savage lion" deity) had an esitmate of 15-20k Euros, and achieved a remarkable 49,000 Euros despite missing its left foot and a rough surface patina. 

693. This was the stunner of the antiquities portion. A lovely, large Greek black-glazed hydria from South Italy and dating to about 350 BC.  The propotions, as is typical of the type, exude femine grace and beauty. Carrying an already ambitious estimate of 15-20k Euros, buyers fought over the object until it was hammered down for a surreal 253,000 Euros.  

694. This 33-inch Roman marble torso of Mercury dated to the 1st-2nd century AD topped its presale estimate of 150-250k Euros by bringing a staggering 481k Euros. 

695. Arguably the rarest of the objects in the sale was this Roman marble statue of a bull-headed man (Minotaur) that stood scarcely taller than a yardstick and once decorated St. Laurent's outdoor garden. Estimated at 300-500k Euros, the winning bid was just shy of 1-million Euros. 

696. The final antiquities lot was a dimunitive 11-inch torso of a Roman athlete estimated at 20-30k Euros and eventually hammered down at 97k Euros. 

With the exception of the Minotaur and the Sarcophagus Lid, the balance of the antiquities lots were quality objects but hardly the rarest or most exceptional examples of their type.  The pomp and frenzy of the sale carried overtones of the Jackie Onassis auction held in NY several years ago. Bidders' eyes were struck by the aesthetic appeal of objects generally obtainable at significantly lower prices in the general art market, but were bllinded to relative values as the most persistent fought to pay whatever it took to own a piece of the Saint Laurent aura.  And the fact that the objects had published provenances from the 1970s and 1980s proves that provenance is valuable, but aura is priceless.     

Mummified Exhibition Opens at Walters Museum in Baltimore

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, will offer visitors a rare opportunity to examine the ancient Egyptians’ fascination with human and animal mummies in the focus show Mummified, on view Nov. 15, 2008 to Nov. 8, 2009. During Mummified, visitors can view a virtual autopsy of one of the museum’s mummies. The University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Diagnostic Radiology and the Walters performed a CT scan on the mummy in Spring 2008. An interactive computer program at several museum locations will allow visitors to learn about the virtual autopsy and “see inside” the mummy, as well as learn more about ancient Egyptian mummies. The exhibition will also present 21 ancient Egyptian objects, showing images of mummified persons, animals and deities, including Osiris and Ptah, while explaining the resurrection symbolism of ancient Egyptian mummiform. Visitors may also see a variety of human, animal and counterfeit ritual mummies in the museum’s Egyptian galleries and its Chamber of Wonders.

“While other cultures sought to preserve the bodies of the cherished dead, a practice that continues even in the present day through taxidermy and embalming, mummification was uniquely central to Egyptian religion and ritual practices from the beginnings of Egypt’s history,” said Regine Schulz, director of international curatorial relations and curator of ancient art. “The exhibition examines the role of mummification in Egyptian culture as well as the art it inspired.”

The centerpiece of Mummified is a mummy excavated between 1930 and 1931 in Deir el-Bahari, Western Thebes by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian expedition. It entered the Walters’ collection in 1941 by exchange with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has remained a mystery due to a lack of identifying inscriptions. CT scanning enabled scholars and scientists to learn, noninvasively and in a respectful manner, more about the subject. The results indicate that the mummy, encased in an elaborately decorated linen and plaster case, was a woman who was between 50 and 60 years old when she died.  She was quite small, even by the standards of her time, measuring only 57 3/8 inches. She suffered from severe dental problems, including at least sixteen abscesses, and one tooth had a dental prosthesis probably made from resin. Ancient dentists could not cure such dental problems so her death was possibly the result of septicemia caused by the abscesses.

By studying the excavation history and decoration of her cartonnage case (the linen or papyrus material used to make funerary masks) scholars know she lived between 850 and 750 BC in Thebes, belonged to the middle class and might have been the mother or wife of a priest, scribe or craftsman. In the absence of an inscription or other identification that has not been preserved, she has been nicknamed Mery, meaning “the beloved” in ancient Egyptian.

The show also will present ibis, cat and falcon mummies with their X-ray images, as well as statuettes of mummiformed men, women and deities. These statuettes pose the intriguing question of why the Egyptians chose to represent their creator and fertility gods as mummies. Particularly impressive in this collection is an ibis mummy still resting in its ceramic funerary urn, which is on loan from the Archaeological Collection of the Johns Hopkins University, and bronze figures of falcons that served as mysterious receptacles for mummified raptors.

The Greatest Period of Anceint Egyptian Metalwork? NY Met Museum Exhibition Explores Subject

Through their long history, the ancient Egyptians used copper, bronze, gold, and silver to create lustrous, graceful statuary for their interactions with their gods – from ritual dramas in the temples and chapels that dotted the landscape to festival processions through the towns and countryside that were thronged by believers. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 16, 2007, Gifts for the Gods: Images from Egyptian Temples is the first exhibition ever devoted to these fascinating yet enigmatic works.

On view will be some 70 superb statues and statuettes created in precious metals and copper alloys including bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) over more than two millennia. The exhibition will bring to New York masterpieces from around the world, including seven extremely rare inlaid and decorated large bronzes from the first half of the first millennium, the so-called Third Intermediate Period (1070 – 664 B.C.), the apogee of Egyptian metalwork. Among these will be the astonishing bronze statue of the priestess and noblewoman Takushit, the treasure of the Egyptian Collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Measuring some 27 inches (70 cm) in height and covered with a luminous latticework of divine figures and imagery in precious metal, this work has never before left Greece.

Understanding the precious metal and bronze statuary of ancient Egypt poses particular challenges. Reverently decommissioned and buried in large temple deposits after long use, the statues often lack historical inscriptions or, indeed, any contextual information. Metal statuary also reveals a somewhat surprising view of Egyptian art, because it represents different cultural, social, and production structures than those of Egypt's stone creations, with which we are more familiar. For instance, the depiction of Hepu (National Archaeological Museum, Athens) with full natural hair – as opposed to the traditional wig – marks him as a member of a newly visible group, probably a soldier in the wars of the early New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1478 B.C.). Through their recent studies of metal statuary, scholars have been able to elaborate a new framework for metal statuary and gain a new appreciation of these works of art.

The exhibition will present an updated understanding of the development of metal types over the centuries. Special emphasis will be given to its time of great flowering, the Third Intermediate Period, revealing that the term "intermediate" does not coincide with the artistic importance of this era. The exhibition runs through February 18. 2008.

Readers of this blog who visit the exhibition are encouraged to leave your comments.

Egyptian Statue Sold for $10k May be Masterpiece Worth Millions

File this one in the category of "research pays off."

In May 2000, Christies South Kensington auctioned the contents of Harrnigton House, Leamington Spa, in the UK. Not many people gave a second thought to a peculiar looking 3-foot high stone statue that was cataloged as a "sculpted stone copy of an Egyptian Ptolemaic queen or goddess, late 19th or early 20th century." Its £1,000-£2,000 estimate suggested it was a perfectly nice garden ornament.

Even so, competition for the object pushed the hammer price to £6,815 ($10,600). Woe to the underbidder.

The statue was indeed a high quality garden ornament. What folks didn't know at the time was that it is thought now to have originally decorated the garden at Hadrian's Villa near Rome.

Sally-Ann Ashton, curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, England, who included the statue in her "Roman Egyptomania" exhibition in 2004-05, says the work is a Roman copy based on an Egyptian original, not a modern copy.  She says there are parallels in the Vatican museum and the blended Egypto-Roman style of the object fits perfectly into Hadrianic Period aristocratic Roman aesthetics.

More definitive history has now come to light. The statue is illustrated in a villa near Padua in a 1787 book published by Justine Wynne, a lover of Cassanova, with a reference that the statue came from Hadrian's villa.

Giovanni Tomasso, a Leeds-based art dealer who acquired the statue, is not offering the spectacular basanite sculpture, albeit at a price more in live with its pedigree past. The asking price? A cool £3.5-million.

Will Zahi Hawass Follow Through on Threat to Halt Egyptian Antiquities in Germany?

Like separated parents locked in a dispute over visiting rights to a child, Cairo is seething over Berlin's refusal to allow it's 3400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti to visit home for a three-month sojourn.

Berlin says the bust is too fragile to make the journey. Egypt isn't buying that and is quick to remind Berlin that the bust was apparently sturdy enough to allow artists in 2003 temporarily attach it to a bronze statue of a naked woman.

Now Zahi Hawass has threatened to "never again" organize an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in Germany should the bust not be lent for a temporary exhibition. Germany, of course, has been an important archaeological force in Egypt over the past century. Like squabbling parents, the simmering feud has the potential to further fray relations.

At the heart of the matter is not simply the concept of a temporary loan of the world-renowned Nefertiti bust. Rather Hawass has been extremely vocal in his public calls for the return of Egyptian antiquities -- even some that have been out of the country for decades -- to be returned to Egypt.

No doubt Berlin is well acquainted with the American phrase that "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Hawass would love to see the bust permanently in Egypt. In the current climate of aggressive and sometimes outrageous claims by Hawass for permanent repatriation of antiquities, it is very likely that it will be quite a few more years before Nefertiti sees Egypt again -- even for a short visit.

Archaeologists Uncover New Ancient Egyptian Tombs at Saqqara

Archaeologists unveiled the tombs Tuesday of a pharaonic butler and a scribe that have been buried for more than 3,000 years - proof that Egypt's sands still have secrets to reveal, according to a report in the Kansas City Star.

Although archaeologists have been exploring Egypt intensively for more than 150 years, some estimate only one-third of what lies underground in Saqqara, site of the country's most ancient pyramid and burial site of kings, has been uncovered, according to the article.

"The sands of Saqqara reveal lots of secrets," said Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, as he showed reporters a 4,000-year-old mud brick tomb that belonged to a scribe of divine records, Ka-Hay, and his wife.

The tomb, along with the butler's 3,350-year-old limestone grave and two painted coffins, were discovered earlier this year near the famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser - the oldest of Egypt's more than 90 pyramids.  Read the full article.

Brooklyn Museum Expedition Uncovers Rare Egyptian Lintel Relief

Officials of the Brooklyn Museum announced that its archaeological expedition to the Temple Precinct of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak has yielded an important carved doorway lintel dating to the Ptolemaic or early Roman period (late Fourth to the Late First Century BC).

The lintel measures nearly 4 feet x 1.5 feet, and is decorated with an offering table flanked on one side by a series of five figures seated on lotus flowers, and on the other side by Bes and Taurett..

The relief is rare because some of its original painting and gilding survives. Only a small number of Egyptian reliefs were gilded.  The quality of the carving is extremely fine.  The Brooklyn Museum has been working at the Temple site for more than two decades and publishes an online diary.

Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun Exhibition in Philadelphia

Next weekend, the buzz in Philadelphia will be around the opening of the blockbuster exhibit touring the US: Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (February 3 to September 30, 2007). (This is the continuation of the event I reviewed during its first stop in LA).  But if you planning to attend Tut, you might also plan your day to take in a complementary exhibition across town at the University of Pennsylvania Museum where the crowds, lines and ticket prices will be considerably smaller.

Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt's most famous pharaoh (ca. 1332 to 1322 BCE), grew up in the royal court at Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna). This royal city, located in a previously uninhabited stretch of desert, existed only a short time. It hardly survived the death of its founder, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's probable father, who introduced the belief in a single deity, the disk of the sun, called the Aten. The Egyptians abandoned both the new religion and the new city, and Tutankhamun led his people back to the traditional beliefs.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum has a considerable collection of artifacts from this significant period, including many from 1920s excavations of Amarna. And the museum has arranged a complementary exhibition timed to coincide with Tut. The exhibition features more than 100 artifacts, including elegant statues of Tutankhamun and Egyptian gods; a monumental wall relief proclaiming the universal power of the Aten; jewelry and other personal items owned by the royal family; materials from Amarna craft workshops—even amulets of censored gods and goddesses, undoubtedly still secretly revered by their owners. These items serve to tell the story of the rise, and fall, of this unique royal city, the role of Pharaoh Akhenaten in a generation of religious change, and the part that young Tutankhamun played in its rapid reversal.