Phoenician Inscribed Bronze Scaraboid Seal

With an ovoid body and two small lug handles to the upper body. 121 grams, 72 mm



Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

The name by which we know the vessel in question comes directly from its name in Greek— alábastron —which itself was derived from Egyptian, although It is difficult to say whether the name in Egyptian first applied to the type of vessel or to the stone used to make it. Pliny (NH 36.12, 37.54) includes an alabastrites or alabastritis from Alabastrum near Thebes in Egypt among his description of stones, and Theophrastus (On Stones, 1.6) an alabastrítes, also from near Thebes. Ptolemy (Geography, 4.5) even mentions an alabastrites mons, a mountain of alabaster, in the same vicinity. The prototype of the alabastron shape with two lug handles first appeared in Egypt at the end of the Middle Kingdom and continued in use with slight variations through New Kingdom times. After an apparent hiatus in the use of the shape at the end of the Late Bronze Age, it appeared again in the second half of the eighth century in a form more similar to our specimen and became common by the 26th Dynasty.

A rectangular section of woven linen textile featuring four lines of neat hieratic text in black. 8 grams, 32 cm



From the collection of a gentleman, acquired on the London art market in the 1990s. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

From the fifth century B.C., mummy wrappings for the affluent frequently display lines of hieratic script—a cursive variant of Egyptian hieroglyphs used for both daily and religious writings. These often include excerpts from funerary texts like the Book of the Dead, along with prayers and invocations designed to safeguard and guide the deceased in the afterlife. These texts, sometimes accompanied by vignettes, were inscribed directly on the linen strips before or during the mummification process. Some of these bandages could be remarkably long; one example from Brussels, measuring only 6.2 cm in width, spans an incredible 26 metres.

Comprising (from left to right and top to bottom): 1) a scarab with an oval border containing the seated figure of a seated deity with arm raised in adoration before the sign partially resembling the hieroglyphic sign for a ‘thousand’, with the water and signs below; 2) a scarab with a faint oval border containing the honey bee and reed leaf symbols; 3) a scarab with an oval border containing the throne name of the 19th Dynasty pharaoh, Ramesses II (User-Maat-Re) atop a neb sign; 4) a scarab with indeterminate signs; 5) a scarab with an oval border containing the falcon god Ra-Horakhty standing atop a neb sign; 6) a scarab inscribed with numerous geometric designs that incorporate the name Amun-Re; 7) a plain scaraboid. 17.4 grams total, 10-20 mm



From the collection of a gentleman, acquired on the London art market in the 1990s. This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.