Let's see your ancient artifacts...

I know a lot of you probably collect other ancient items like rings, bracelets, fibulas, scarabs, bullas, etc. so lets see them. Here are a few of mine - enjoy:


Item: Roman Period Syria Limestone Head
Date: Circa 1st-4th century AD
Info: Perhaps Palymrian culture, from a small statuette
Size: 25mm x 35mm


Item: Roman pottery bulla (seal) with veiled woman’s head
Date: Circa 1st-4th century AD
Sile: 20mm x 22mm


Item: Egyptian Faience Ushabti, , with most of the the brown/blue/green glaze still intact.
Date: Early Ptolemaic Period, Circa 300 BC.
Info. Mummiform figure on a pedestal, holding crook and flail.
Size: 95mm tall


Item: Roman Empire silver earring
Date: 1st-3rd century AD.
Weight: 1.9g
Size: 25mm x 22mm x 11mm


Item: Medieval terra cotta bust of a a saint
Size: 55mm x 37mm x 23mm



Item: Roman Empire terra cotta female bust
Date: 1st-3rd century AD
Size: 37mm x 21mm x 38mm


Item: Ancient Thrace silver bracelet
Date: 4th-3rd century B.C.
Weight: 36.7g.
Outer Size: 77mm x 69mm x 32mm
Inner Size: 60mm x 51mm

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

My only artifact other than coins is this Chola era bronze container/money pot (Circa 1000-1200 AD).
This pot is surprising heavy for it's size, makes me wonder if the metal content of this pot at 397 grams alone would equal the weight of the number of copper coins it could hold.


My image of the pot containing bunch of my Chola coins among other ancient coins, as it's intended.

 

Here are some of my ancient artifacts:

 

Nice collection! I recently found my first arrowhead last month after looking for one for the last 4 years whenever I went fossil hunting or rockhounding. Found my 2nd and 3rd just in the last few weeks... weird how they are now showing up after all this time.

 

It seems that they get easier to find once you have found one.

 

Well the fish fossils are older than my ancient artifacts. Lol

And a blue ushabti

 

There are many fragments of antiquities I have collected when I was young, much younger. Only fragments, of course. Pottery shards I myself picked on the ground, or I bought (for cheap) in some tourist shops...

Here are some :




These fragments of terracotta statuettes are from Roman Egypt.
1 : Head of a doll. It was a toy for little girls, the ancestor of the Barbie dolls. There were holes in the ears for ear-rings. The hairdo is typical of the 1st c. AD Roman fashion.
2 : Soldier. This toy was for little boys, I think, the ancestor of action figures. There is a hole in his fist for a removable spear or sword (sold separately, probably).
3 : Head of an Ephesian Artemis statuette, perhaps made (or sold) in Ephesus. We know that in the 1st c. AD Ephesus was like today's Lourdes, there was an industry making pious objects for the pilgrims to bring home : silver models of the shrine, silver statuettes, but also much cheaper artefacts like this humble terracotta statuette. Cf Acts 19:23-27.
4 : Head of a Serapis terracotta statuette. Probably from Alexandria.





Early Byzantine Egypt, 5th-6th c. AD. Fragment of linen fabric with a small embroidery. The color is probably purple.




Late Roman Africa (Tunisia), 4th-5th c. AD. Fragment of a paleochristian plate decorated with figures molded separately and applied. This one represents the sacrifice of Isaac.

 

I'm a bit of a "renaissance" fellow as well. That is to say I have other collections of interest that could be classified as "ancient". Not to get to far off topic, but then again this is my thread:


Trilobite - Paralejurus sp. from the Devonian Period (rare species)
Atlas Moutains, Morocco
Approx. 360,000,000 years old.
Excellent preservation with intricate shell and eye detail and intact hypostome.
3.1" x 2.5" x 1.4"


Trilobite - Hollardops sp. (Metacanthina) from the Devonian Period (very rare species)
Hamar Laghdad Formation, Erfoud, Morocco
Approx. 360,000,000 years old
Superb eye facet detail
3.1" x 2" x 1.2"



Jurassic Period Ammonite - Aegasteroceras sp. from the famous Froddingham Ironstone of Scunthorpe, UK.
4.4" x 4" x 1.8"
A sought after fossil from this renowned and no longer accessible site


Eocene Age Fossilized Fish - This is a superb, large specimen from the Eocene age of the Henan Province, China. Excellent detail, with very pronounced vertebrae, from an old collection.
Approx. 40,000,000 years old
5" x 4.8" x 0.6"


Purple Fluorite
125.5g
71mm x 49mm x 39mm


Fluorite (Fluorescent)
Location: Rogerley Mine, Weardale Durham, England
Nice matrix specimen of green to bluish-green colored fluorite crystals


Native Copper
Location: Ontonagonc Co., Michigan (Michigan's Keweenaw
Peninsula)


Amethyst / Citrine ("Cactus Quartz" or "Spirit" Quartz or Fairy Quartz)
Location: Kwa Ndebele, South Africa
A quartz (purple amethyst and reddish-yellow citrine) crystal cluster.


Hemimorphite
Location: Wenshan¸ China
A specimen of bluishgreen hemimorphite.


Iron Meteorite
Location: Gran Chaco Gualamba, Argentina
A specimen of the Campo Del Cielo meteorite which is a coarse iron (octahedrite) meteorite from Argentina. The meteorite was found in 1576.

 

I have most of those. Yours are beautiful.

 

Good to see that I'm not the only coin collector on here that enjoys fossil hunting/collecting

 

Large Bronze Age Brush-Decorated 'Teapot' 16th-14th century BC

A squat terracotta vessel with broad base, rounded body, low rim with collar, short spout, the shoulder with band of brushed texturing. 1.5 kg, 20cm (8"). Mid-Eastern




Large Apuleian Blackware Skyphos. Southern Italy, 4th century BC. Large black ware two handled wine cup with wide mouth. 4.25” high, 4” diameter 6.5”




C. 4th century AD
Roman redware terracotta bowl decorated with incised concentric circles to rim.



Roman pale green glass bottle, 1st - 2nd Century A.D. the piriform body with lightly indented bottom and long tubular neck with wide inward folded rim. H: 4 in.

 

There’s a few of us on here that collect fossils and rocks. Here’s some more of my collection.
Carder fish and shrimp fossil.

A clam Shell being filled with Calcite. This came from Florida.

For the life of me I can’t think of what this is called. You should see one before it’s cut and polished.

A starfish fossil that’s smaller than a dime.

A fossil pine one.

An amethyst geode.

Pyrite cubes, from Spain if I can remember correctly.

A ammonite fossil covered with pyrite.

A Chrysanthemum flower. These are all known to come from China. They are no longer able to dig for these as the Chinese government built a dam and flooded the only known area of them.

A man made mineral called Bismuth. It’s from a lab in Germany and it’s what they used to make that pink liquid known as Peti-Bismol.

 

Here’s a few of my Roman Bottles. Nothing like a 2000 year old piece of glass. They are very fragile. It’s also difficult to get the dirt off of these things.

 

All these small glass bottles were perfume bottles. They were funerary offerings and deposited in tombs, which explains why they are still intact. In the Greco-Roman civilization the smell of perfume had a religious signification: the presence of the gods.

 

That is correct.

 

I don't know if this falls in "ancient artifacts", but it's older than me, so I guess that's "ancient". It was artfully made, so I guess that covers the "art". And, I've got it, and that's a "fact", so maybe it does fall in this category? Anyway, I like it. As best I can tell from internet searches, this style is usually called an Herodian Lamp since it was common during the Reign of Herod. Usually dated from 50-25 B.C. to 50-70 A.D. It still has dirt and rocks in it. I was going to clean it out, but the dealer I got it from recommended leaving it. Said it gave it more "character". Since I have one from around 400 A.D. that is pristine, I decided to leave this one as it is. Ike Dollar used to show size.

 

@kountryken Thanks or sharing your Herodian lamp!

For more information about your lamp check out the link below from the Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles website. This web page is a wonderful and accurate source of information, written by a late dear friend of mine, Ken Baumheckel.
https://www.accla.org/actaaccla/oillamps2010.html

Scroll down about half-way to see examples under the title of "IV. Roman Period Lamps" / "35-43 Herodian Oil Lamps. First Century."

 

Thank you so much. I'm always wanting to learn more, and I definitely want any information that I disseminate to be as accurate as can be. I can't go to the link you provided, yet, but I can't wait to read it. Hopefully I didn't put out bad info, but, if I did, it was unintentional, and I will do my best to correct it. Again, thank you, Kenneth

 

Here's a mixture of artifacts and other objects of interest, including minerals and fossils (excluding myself).

Roman bronze bull, crica 2nd century AD. Purchased from HJB Buy-Bid Sale221, lot 689.
140.06 grams

I love the modeling of this small bronze figurine. Wonderful patina as well.




Babylonia, Old Period (circa 1894–1595 BC), dendritic agate frog carving/weight. Another HJB acquisition.




Minoan bronze female dancer figurine, circa 2300-2200 BC.

Because of its small size, I think it might have been a child's toy at one time.




In the realm of fossils and minerals, I have decades worth of accumulation.

Quartz, Fairburn agate, Lame Johnny, South Dakota. Very rare this colorful.




Quartz, Apache agate, Rancho La Vinata, Ejido El Apache Chihuahua, Mexico. 219.2 grams

This is an old surface find from the mid 1960s. Very rare.



Malachite, Shaba Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
286 grams




Azurite, massive with small pockets of crystals.




Native Gold, crystalline on and in quartz, Coulterville, California
51.7 grams




Trilobite, Cheirurus Gibbus, Morocco, Devonian Era.




Trilobite, Phacops Rana, Sylvania, Ohio, coiled, Devonian Era.