Saturday, August 20, 2005

Ancient Egyptian Items at Auction

An auction to be held on 18th October 2005 at Christies in London, UK, will include some remarkable archaeological items, including impressive examples from Egypt:"The general sale is led by the more than 3,000-year-old Egyptian granodiorite head of Sekhmet which means "the powerful." Although this lioness deity was a symbol of destruction, she was also a protective goddess (GBP200,000-GBP250,000). Formerly in a European private collection when it was acquired in Paris in the mid-1960s, the head probably came from one of the many seated statues of Sekhmet found in the Temple of Mut at Karnak, and dates to the reign of Amenhotep III (1386-1349 B.C.E) . . . . Also featured is the 5,000-year-old "Stansfeld" tablet (GBP60,000-GBP90,000), a rare example of the earliest form of writing: pictographic symbols inscribed in clay. . . . The auction will also offer over 60 antiquities from the collection of the late Wilhelm Horn (1870-1959), a Berlin banker who was fascinated by Egyptology and the ancient Greeks and Romans". For more information about the auction location and contents see this article on the Jerusalem Post website (also available on the Christies website as a PDF). Further details including catalogue availability should be announced nearer the time, at:

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