Featured Ancient ... but not a coin! Artifacts thread! Post 'em!

Awesome group of stuff Ken !

If I was to make a guess I would say it all is from Spain. I have almost everything there that looks the same from my time metal detecting in Spain.

I had over 200 plus medieval type buttons like those ! And a lot of terracotta pieces I found when I was metal detecting.

 

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Yep. All from Spain. I would note though, and a lot of people don’t realize, those “buttons” are not medieval but Roman. And not buttons either but sword belt stiffeners (and also others, horse harnesses, straps, etc). They are specific to the region (though I think they also appear in Britain).

 

This is my only non-coin ancient artifact, a frit Mitanni cylinder seal depicting two geese below a crescent (moon?). It dates to 1400-1200 BC and has the distinctive scritchy line style of Mitanni art.



I find the Mitanni empire intriguing, as it is one of the true lost empires of the world. At their height, the Mitanni were equals to the Hittite and Egyptian bronze age empires. They allied themselves with Egypt, marrying into the Pharaonic line, to protect against Hittite power. While the Mitanni leaders were likely invaders from the Indian subcontinent, they ruled over a Hurrian-speaking populace. The Assyrians took advantage of a Mitanni internecine dispute when Egypt was self-absorbed by Akhenaten's religious reorganization, and the empire fell into obscurity. We know very little about the Mitanni because their cities are largely unexcavated, and, because, with a few exceptions, the sources we have for them derive mostly from their rivals.

 

This makes me much happier than "have long since been dug up and scattered".

I remember reading a science-fiction short story that alluded to a constant tension in archaeology -- you want to excavate and learn all you can, but you remember how much cruder and more destructive archaeological techniques were a century or two ago, and you wonder how much more advanced and gentle they'll be a hundred years from now. Do you really want to go in with trowels and brushes and cameras now, when your great-grandchildren may be able to scan the whole site for composition, micrometer by micrometer, without touching it?

 

I agree. I love reading about recent archaeological finds, but am torn because we're certainly inadvertantly destroying history. New non-invasive methods are increasingly used, but old-school excavation is still rampant.

 

Well, RATS! I was hoping for a more "Ditch Witch and Sledge Hammer" approach... (Just to speed things up a bit...)

 

@Ken Dorney After reading this post again and seeing your items from Spain. I went on a hunt in the house looking for some of my items I found when I would go metal detecting in Spain. I found another box ( more to be found).

 

I found another box of stuff Ill try to post tomorrow.

 

The closest I ever got to owning an ancient artifact was in Cambodia, at one of the Angkor structures. Laying on the ground, on the surface, was a spherical, "slat" fragment from one of the nearby structures.

I was very tempted to take it (it was approximately softball sized) but I didn't really want to get arrested at the Siem Reip airport for illegal smuggling of artifacts... So it dropped it back on the ground and dragged myself away.

3 years later and I'm still wondering if I shouldn't have just taken it...

 

My photos dont give it justice it really is cut and shaped like a shell..
Its lead, weighs exactly 50gr and about 30mm diameter. I found this whilst metal detecting a couple of months ago...
https://edgarlowen.com/csgn-seals.shtml
Mine looks to be a match to 12629...12630

 

@Spaniard I have one of those that look like a shell in lead and bronze. That is awesome I have seen a few before and attributed as a type of early money.

 

Sorry I have not got around to getting my other items all photographed but here are some more of my items. In one pic there is a fibula just like the ones you posted above @Ken Dorney

 

Nice assortment of items! Loom weights, Roman thimbles, sling bullets, Visigothic buckles, terra sigillata fragments from Gaul, Celt-Iberian fibula, Iberian arrowheads, clothing fasteners (precursor to buttons), dagger chape. Very nice lot.

 

Thought I'd share.....

Constantine I (306-337 AD)

Lead seal

 

So long.. Here are 3 ancient original lamps which are part of a recent lot I could acquire. I've also added a strange charming piece of colored glass. Cheers..

 

Thanks for bumping this thread, it was enjoyable reading through from the beginning. I can add some ancient non coin stuff, here's one of my favorites. Wish I had better pictures but this dagger along with all my other antiquities are stored over a thousand miles away from where I'm currently living .
Description:
An ancient European Bronze Age reworked dagger, dating to approximately 800 BC.

Of rare and unusual form, with a long ridged handle, slender blade and prominent central rib. Unusually, this piece appears to have originally been made as a spear head, subsequently broken (possibly in battle), and reworked into a dagger. Beating marks from this process of reworking are still clearly visible.
A weapon such as this would have been used in battle by the early Celtic peoples and their predecessors, indeed the period to which this artifact dates was characterized by migrations and invasions of warrior led groups across Europe. The late Bronze Age appears to have been a time of widespread warfare and social upheaval, ultimately carried on the back of weapons such as this.

Length: 8 ½ inches.

Provenance:
Ex. ArtAncient Ltd, Ex-Collection of Henk Huffener (1923 – 2006), a respected artist, officially honored hero of the Dutch resistance, and successful antiques dealer, with establishments in Surrey and Kensington, England.
Huffener was born in Utrecht in 1923. One of nine children, he soon became known for his artistic talents, most notably for his still lifes, portraits, and abstractionist works. Huffener, inspired by his father, also became immersed in the world of anti-fascist activism. Come the start of the war, he began traveling the Netherlands, helping Jews escape Nazi-occupied Europe by providing them with forged papers, and hiding them from their persecutors. This incredible bravery and selflessness was documented in The Other Schindlers by Agnes Grunwald-Spier (2010), and Huffener was honoured by Yad Vashem as 'Righteous Among the Nations' in 1998. His wartime contributions were also commemorated posthumously in March 2010, when Prime Minister Gordon Brown awarded him the Hero of the Holocaust medal for "the service of humanity."
Huffener eventually moved to England in the 1950s, establishing his own antiques business in 1959 in Albury, Surrey. Here, his knowledge and collections grew to encompass antiquities, ethnographic art, glass, paintings and fossils. Also noted for his restoration skills, Huffener was much respected in his field, coming to befriend Herbert Reiser, one of the world's leading collectors.

 

An ancient Egyptian bronze statuette of the God Harpokrates, shown seated wearing the sidelock of youth, sun-disc and tripartite wig, dating to Egypt's Late Period, approximately 664-323 BC

Harpokrates is the Greek name for the Egyptian God Horus, depicted in his child form with finger to the mouth - a recognition of the Egyptian "child" hieroglyph. He was the God of the sunrise, and was often depicted as a falcon.

A suspension loop at the back would have enabled the figure to be worn as an amulet.

Height: 3 1/2 inches.

Provenance:
Ex. ArtAncient Ltd, Ex-Collection of C.E.Best (died 1973). Cecil Best was an incredibly colorful character. Educated at Ardingley college in the late 1800's, Best trained as a banker but subsequently worked as a miner, soldier, merchant, editor and singer. He served as syllabus secretary at the Theosophical Society, England, where he met his future wife Inayat Khan, who converted him to the Sufism form of Islam and renamed him Shahbaz. Shahbaz Best, as he was now known, traveled to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to spread his religion and work as a banker. It was during this time that he met H.E.Inman, a marine engineer, who gifted him his collection of antiquities that he had acquired in lieu of payment from the Egyptian government between 1910-1912. The antiquities were excavated from tombs in lower Egypt and were on display at the Southampton Museum in England after the death of Mr. Best in 1973.

I also have a similar Isis statuette from the collection of Mr. Best, unfortunately I don't have any photos of it on hand. I like these kinds of provenanced pieces when you can find them, for me it adds a lot of interest, especially learning about and having a connection to Henk Huffener, whose incredibly brave and admirable story is fascinating enough on its own.

 

A bronze Avar belt strap end depicting two griffins and a deer, dating to approximately the 8th century CE. The Avars were a nomadic tribe of horse-mounted warriors who occupied the Eurasian steppes and formed an Empire from the 6th-9th Century. They threatened, and at times protected the neighboring Byzantine Empire.

Height: 1 1/2 in
Length: 4 in

Ex. ArtAncient Ltd


The rear half of a broken bronze Avar animal, probably a dog, dating to approximately the 8th Century CE. With chased decoration adorning the heavily stylized body, it is a piece of particularly fine workmanship, and likely intentionally broken in antiquity.

Length: 2 3/4 inches

Ex. ArtAncient Ltd


An ancient red terracotta roundel, dating to the Byzantine period, approximately the 6th century CE. In this charming, rustic scene, a farmer, wearing a chiton or short tunic, is depicted standing beneath a date palm, pulling one of the branches down towards the ground to collect the thick bunches of fruit. To the right, a bird pecks at one of the bunches of dates, while a dog or a goat stands below, perhaps looking to catch some of the fallen fruit.

Biblical narratives are a popular theme of roundels from the Byzantine period, yet this example simply depicts a scene of everyday life, something that you might very well still see today in the modern areas of the Byzantine East.

Height: 3 1/2 inches
Length: 5 1/2 inches

Ex. ArtAncient Ltd