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

...This can't not remind me of the modifications the very 18th-c. harpsichord maker Pascal Taskin was making to Dutch instruments of a century and more before. At this remove, the alteration has become integral to the artifact.

 

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...where do we meet at..our support group?..(oh,...here we are! )

 

Both of them are very appealing. Congratulations, especially on your first venture into Egyptian antiquities! For the future, a great resource for learning to identify and avoid fake ushabtis and scarabs, etc. is http://www.collector-antiquities.com/real-or-fake/fake-egyptian.html, with multiple pages of examples. The author has his own store of inexpensive Egyptian and other antiquities for sale; see http://www.collector-antiquities.com/shop/gallery.html?pcat=4. And I believe he can be trusted to sell only the genuine article. Sorry, I wanted to recommend the site when you asked earlier, but I couldn't remember the name of it until just now.

Just curious: I've noticed before that you spell ushabti as ishabti. Is there any reason for that? I've seen shabti and shawabti used before, but not ishabti.

 

No, you're just too (expletive of choice) Good!

 

Massive thanks for all of this. ...No, not done with that. Need your link.
In other news, regarding the ostensible orthography of 'ushabti,' I plead Samuel Johnson: "Ignorance, Madam, Pure Ignorance." ...Anyway, that would be a lot easier than trying to reconstruct where I got "Ishabti" from in the first place. :<}

 

Just as a side note, If anyone finds themselves in the area, or even London (it is a 2.5 hour train ride) Arundel Castle is a fantastic place to visit. Great castle, art, gardens, and even the village is a delight.

 

@Only a Poor Old Man, I believe you!!! (...I have a whole extended 'bucket list' of castles I'd like to see.) The one thing about Arundel that sticks in my head most is the contrast between the two sides of the castle, with elaborate modern, neo-Gothic residential buildings (on the site of earlier ones) nearer the main gate, and a nearly empty but pristine, mostly c. 13th-century circuit of walls behind them. The state of preservation of some of this stuff is remarkable.

 

I enjoyed the area. I drove on to Winchester, also. Suggest that area. Great visits

 

I just bought a lot of old rings.. not sure where most would be from/ time periods, other than a few guesses

Runic Letters on the third one?

2nd + third look like Byzantine style?

 

The only artifacts i have at the moment are from the us civil war which is a part of history i am invested in. I really do want a small collection of scarabs one day though! super cool!

 

The vast majority of the rings are Islamic circa 16th to early 20th centuries. Typical of "Holy Land" finds, though several types are often marketed as Roman. The few with plain round bezels may be earlier. Hard to tell without more detail.

SC

 

Kinda fun wondering where in "western Ukraine, Lviv region." This little beauty was found and under what time period was it made?


As well, the first one was listed as being a,
Ancient Roman Bronze Artifact.

Doesn't look much Roman to me. But I dig the design and for a $20 why not?

Call me shield crazy, but I wonder if these after possibly shield bosses?!

 

that last one was on sumpin...it got 'hooks' on the back...

 

And the lion appears to have metal broken off the inside nose connecting to, what I assume, may have been a shield, door or maybe a girlfriend's rear or something.

 

This is a tiny, duodecimo leaf from a French bible, likely Paris, c. 2nd quarter of the 13th century. Managed to get another one, from the same ms., from a British antiquities dealer. It was a window. Here are both pages of the first one, with enlargements.



For the corresponding text of the Vulgate, you could go here:
https://vulgate.org/ot/2chronicles_32.htm
I'm a fan of early-High Gothic, c. later 12th-mid-13th centuries. Very much across media. Not least how the same esthetic translated into calligraphy. (Mss. of the English chronicler Matthew Paris are one resonant collective example.)
--Thank you, this is necessarily reducible to personal taste.
Given which, along with the architecture, before and after the increasingly elaborate developments of the later 13th-15th centuries, the calligraphy follows a similar trajectory: the more angular (some might say, anal-retentative) proto-'Fraktur.' Which I for one cordially detest.
The contrast provided by this period is dramatic. The lettering as of the earlier 13th century is So Chill, I Need it. Please note the more rounded, generally more fluid letter forms. What you get here is Both some serious continuity with neo-Carolingian, 'Romanesque' lettering, And ...well, something that gets to be both Gothic, and, well, Chill.
...Anyone, adherents or (Teacher, I Raise My Hand) not, is cordially invited to pray for the ongoing restoration of la Notre Dame de Paris.

 

Here's a carving that I assume is Egyptian. I purchased it on eBay several years ago.

It appears to be made of marble, and it basically square shaped. In the front appears to be four mummified monkeys, wearing shrouds.

The surfaces are quite weathered and there is a partially removed or worn old label attached to the side. I cannot make out the writing on the label other than "carving".

The object measures 47 mm wide, 45 mm deep and 35 mm high, and it weighs 146.2 grams.

My guess is that it came from a tomb some time ago, of which kingdom or dynasty it can be attributed to, I do not know.

Can anyone shed some light on this piece?

Thanks

 

2 of my lovely Roman Glass bottles:

 

@robinojo,

@robinjojo, this is a total stumper from here. I have guesses, which don't sound any smarter with time.

 

Thanks

The dealer, based in Florida, sells all sorts of stuff from local estates and other sources, so this object came to me with scant information.

I'm guessing Ptolemaic, but that's a shot in the dark.

 

Well, Shoot, Best of luck! From here, it smells medieval --from anywhere that allowed this level of representation, which gives you lots of latitude in the Middle East. ...That was only the best of my two guesses, the other one (chess piece?) having been ruled out by your dimensions.