Egyptian Terracotta “Hyksos” Concubine Figure, Second Intermediate Period, 15th-17th Dynasty, 1650-1550 BC

The nude figure, standing with her incised hands resting on her thighs, modeled with long tapering legs, wearing an applied triple strand collar framing her small breasts, the broad face modeled with incised linear eyes and a short ridged nose, with pierced disc earrings, her coiffure pierced with three holes, 17cm

Very Rare Bactrian Jar with Figural Scene, 2nd ML BC

A carved chlorite(?) jar with high-relief image of two oxen tied to a tree, inverted nude male between them. 222 grams, 64mm (2 ½"). 

Vessels made from steatite or chlorite have frequently been found at early to mid-third millennium BC sites in Mesopotamia, Iran, and along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. On the island of Sarut, in the Gulf, sites have been discovered where large quantities of the raw material, unfinished and completed vessels, which would indicate that this was the center of manufacture and from where they would eventually be disseminated through international trade.

Motif on these vessels vary from scenes of animals, mythological creatures and deities, to representations of textiles and wool - important commodities to the emerging Empires at the time. Important animals, apart from sheep and goats, were bulls who were associated with important deities associated with rain and fertility. The nature of the representations would suggest that these vessels were used in religious ceremonies.

Roman Red Jasper Gemstone Depicting Mēn, 2nd-3rd Century AD

Mēn was a lunar god worshipped in the western interior parts of Anatolia. He is attested in various localised variants, such as Mēn Askaenos in Antioch in Pisidia, or Mēn Pharnakou at Ameria in Pontus.

Mēn is often found in association with Persianate elements, especially with the goddess Anahita. Lunar symbolism dominates his iconography. The god is usually shown with the horns of a crescent emerging from behind his shoulders, and he is described as the god presiding over the (lunar) months. Strabo describes Mēn as a local god of the Phrygians. Mēn may be influenced by the (feminine) Zoroastrian lunar divinity Mah, but his male sex is apparently due to the Mesopotamian moon god Sin.

An Unusual Roman Mosaic Glass Bottle, 1st Century AD

Formed from slices of a cane with an opaque white circle in a translucent light amber-colored matrix to form a squat unguentarium with a short cylindrical neck and pear-shaped body.

This small bottle is an unusual mixture of ancient glass making techniques with sections from a cast mosaic cane that were fused together and then blown to create the final shape. Usually such vessels are formed from layers or opaque white and blue or purple glass or four to six larger sections as with gold-band vessels.

 Roman Green Glass Unguentarium, Early 3rd century AD

Gothic Military Belt Fitting & Buckle, 5th-7th Century AD

Medieval Gilt Buckle with a Dragon, 13th-15th Century AD

A large silver gilt buckle and belt plate decorated with a dragon/bird hybrid monster, head turned back with mouth open, wing against body and long curling tail; angled frame to buckle with ball ends and ribbed cross bar; pin with engraved cross to one end.

Etruscan Bronze Mirror, 4th-3rd Century BC

Engraved with two nude male figures, the figure on the right standing wearing a helmet and mantle, leaning on a shield with his left hand and holding a spear in his right hand, and the figure on the left, a satyr wearing a fillet tied around his head, leaning on a thyrsus in his right hand and holding a bone in his left hand, with foliate decoration on either side and below,

Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Glass Bracelets

Roman Gold Ring With Agate Cameo Depicting a Sleeping Dog and Greek Inscription, 1st-2nd Century AD

Pair of gold clasps depicting warriors, 1st century BC.  Part of the “Bactrian Hoard", this piece was discovered in 1978 among 20,600 other gold ornaments in an ancient grave site near Sheberghan in Northern Afghanistan.  In 1979 the artifacts were carefully hidden in secret vaults under the Central Bank of Afghanistan in Kabul.  They were rediscovered in 2003.

Bronze ‘Star Bowl’

Credit: Owen Jarus

This bronze “star bowl" is from the northwest palace at Nimrud and dates somewhere between the 9th-8th centuries BC. Museum researchers note that around the star are seven bands of tiny horned animals, either stags or goats, walking in a procession. They believe this bowl to have been made in Syria.

20 Franc Napoleon I gold coin, struck in 1808

Neo-Assyrian treasures found in Queen’s Tombs at Nimrud.

Ancient Troy and the Infamous Treasure of Schliemann’s Trench

Heinrich Schliemann, a German businessman who was born in 1822 in Mecklenburg, learned the Iliad by heart at a very young age. He was blessed with enough imagination to endeavor to discover Troy, and felt the excitement of the Trojan War deeply. While many people thought that Troy was only a legendary city which never existed, Schliemann be­lieved every line of the Iliad. He accepted the Trojan War as an historical fact, and learned sev­eral languages in order to under­stand the Iliad better. To make the world believe the existence of Troy, with the guidance of Homer he started making plans to discover Troy.

After a lifetime of research, he found the most possible location near modern Hisarlik, Turkey. Schliemann had to go to great lengths just to get permission and secure the excavation with the local government.  In May 1873, As he was standing near to a trench with his wife Sophie, he suddenly noticed some metal ob­jects slightly sticking out from the ground. He was sure that he had found treasure. The question was, how to protect it from the local workmen, whom he did not trust. None of the workmen had noticed it yet so Schliemann turned to Sophie and said: “You must go at once and shout PAIDOS!” (Paidos was a Greek word, as well as Turkish, mean­ing rest period) “Now, at seven o’clock?” She asked. “Yes - now!” said Schliemann. “Tell them it is my birthday, and I have only just remembered it! Tell them they will get their wag­es today without working. See that they go to their villages and see that the overseer does not come here.” Sophia did as she was told. The workmen were pleased with this unexpected holiday and went to rest. After all the workmen had gone, Sophia returned to the trench where Schliemann was at­tempting to dig the treasure out with a pocket knife, in danger from collapsing stones and earth. After a while he turned again to Sophia and said: “Quick, bring me your big shawl” Sophia returned with a big shawl. The treasure was put into the shawl and together they car­ried it back to thier house. The treasure consisted of a cop­per shield, a copper cauldron, a silver vase and another of cop­per, a gold bottle, two gold cups, and a small electrum cup. There was a silver goblet, three great silver vases, seven double-edged copper daggers, six silver knife blades, and thirteen cop­per lance-heads, two gold di­adems, fifty-six gold earrings, 8750 gold rings and buttons. The two diadems, one of them consisting of ninety chains, en­tirely covering the forehead, were exceptional. Nothing like this had ever been seen before and Schliemann’s dream of finding Homer’s city of Troy had come true!

Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC: Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, an archaeological layer of Troy representing late Hittite Empire to Neo-Hittite times (ca. 1300 to 950 BC).

photo by Malcolm Bott

2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town’s citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with “various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels” inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.

“The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans.  They had buried their hoards inside the citadel,” Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained. Read more.

Recovered doubloon and ring.