Boston museum returns Egyptian child sarcophagus to Sweden

Ancient, Looting, Museums

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has returned an ancient Egyptian clay child sarcophagus to Uppsala University’s Museum Gustavianum more than 50 years after it was stolen under mysterious circumstances.

Made of alluvial clay, the sarcophagus dates to the 19th Dynasty (1295–1186 B.C.). It is 43 inches high and vividly painted. The child is depicted wearing a headdress of blue and yellow stripes tied with a headband of white, blue and red lotuses. Lotus petals cover the collar on his chest. The head and chest are on a cut-out section that can be removed to access the interior. Beneath the collar are more lotus flowers, wadjet eyes and the goddess Nut with outstretched wings flanked by Anubis seated jackals. The bottom part of the sarcophagus is covered with hieroglyphs identifying the deceased as a boy named Pa-nefer-neb.

The MFA Boston acquired it in 1985, and the ownership record seemed to be thorough and above-board, even at a time when museum’s paid zero attention to that sort of thing. It was sold by one Olaf Liden claiming to be an agent of Swedish artist Eric Ståhl (1918–1999). A letter ostensibly written by Ståhl described how he had personally discovered the sarcophagus in Amada, Egypt, in 1937, and the Egyptian government had later gifted it to him for his aid in the archaeological rescue operations before construction of the Aswan Dam. The coffin’s authenticity was attested to in writing by Swedish experts.

It was the MFA itself that realized this story was complete fiction, that Ståhl was never involved in any archaeological excavations in Egypt, that the letter and authentication documents were forged and the sarcophagus had been purloined from the Swedish museum, smuggled to Boston and fraudulently sold. The trigger was the 2008 publication of previously unseen photographs from the archive of the Petrie Museum. The sarcophagus was in one of the pictures: a shot of a 1920 archaeological excavation in Gurob, Egypt, by the British School of Archaeology under the direction of British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. A note with the photograph stated the coffin had been given to Uppsala University in 1922 as part of the partage system that was common at the time. All institutions involved in digs got a cut of the artifacts, basically, in exchange for their funding and fieldwork.

MFA curators initiated an investigation and contacted the Gustavianum to let them know about the discrepancy. Provenance researchers from both museums cooperated and shared information during the process. They found that the sarcophagus went missing from the museum’s stores in 1970 or earlier. It was not deaccessioned or traded. Both parties came to the same conclusion: the coffin had been taken from the Gustavianum illegally and should be returned.

“It is very gratifying that this return has now come to pass. The child’s sarcophagus is an important item in our collections and it means a lot to the museum and the University that it has now been returned to us. The sarcophagus is an excellent complement to our Egyptian collections and will now be available for research,” says Mikael Ahlund, Museum Director of Gustavianum, or Uppsala University Museum. “But the sarcophagus needs some work and it will be some time before it can be shown to the public in Gustavianum,” he adds.

You can see the petite coffin being unpacked upon its return to Sweden in this video. 

“Excalibur” identified as 10th c. Islamic sword

Medieval

A sword discovered in Valencia in 1994 has been identified as an early Islamic era weapon dating to the 10th century. It is the first sword from the Islamic period to be found in Valencia.

Founded by Roman consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 B.C. as a veterans colony, Valencia was conquered by invading Muslim forces in 714 A.D. The Islamic city, known as Balansiya in Arabic, prospered and by the 10th century was a regional hub of trade. The Moorish taifa kingdom of Valencia, established in 1010, was frequently troubled with dynastic conflict, assassination and for one brief stretch at the end of the 11th century, conquest by the Castilian knight and Spanish national hero El Cid.

The iron sword was found in Valencia’s old town north of the ancient Roman Forum in a house from the Islamic era. It had been stuck in the ground inside a grave and was discovered in an upright position, giving rise to its nickname “Excalibur.” It is 46 cm (18 inches) long with a blade that curves slightly towards the tip. The hilt is decorated with bronze plates and has small notches for ease of handling. There is no hand guard, however, which suggests it may have been a cavalry weapon from the caliphal era. The curved blade is more typical of Visigothic swords. These mixed characteristics are the reason why it has taken so long to determine its maker and period. It was the sediment sample recovered from the find site that finally allowed researchers to date it to the 10th century.

The sword, which has been restored, has been dated within the framework of the archeology scholarship organized annually by the Valencia City Council. In the 2023-2024 edition, the scholarship has been dedicated entirely to the analysis of metallic objects. The fact that the beneficiary of this scholarship is an archaeologist specialized in metals has favored the exact dating of the sword.

The Councilor for Cultural Action, Heritage and Cultural Resources, José Luis Moreno, has assured that “thanks to the archeology grant organized by the Valencia City Council, the archaeologist José Miguel Osuna is carrying out a detailed analysis study of metal objects ranging from the Roman era to the late medieval period and where a new and exceptional discovery has come to light, which we have called the Excalibur of Roc Chabàs due to its similarity to the legendary sword of King Arthur.” According to the councilor, “this sword has a unique design that gives it great archaeological and heritage value, so we have a new treasure in this Islamic Excalibur and a historical legacy of ancient Balansiya.”

17th c. coin hoard found in farmhouse kitchen reno

Modern(ish)

Robert and Betty Fooks were already living a history nerd’s dream when they bought a 17th century Dorset farmhouse fixer upper in 2019. That escalated into full-on history nerd fantasyland when Robert took a pickaxe to the floor of their kitchen and discovered 1,029 gold and silver coins from the English Civil War (1642-1644).

South Poorton Farm in a small West Dorset hamlet was 400 years old when the Fooks’ bought it and in need of extensive renovation. They decided to remove the modern concrete floor to create more head space and ultimately dug down through almost two feet, passing through old flagstones and bare earth. Robert was putting in some sweat equity one October evening, digging up a bare earth area with his pickaxe when he encountered a glazed pottery bowl full of coins. The bowl was smashed, either by the pickaxe or earlier, but the coins were unscathed.

The discovery was reported to the local Finds Liaison Officer and the hoard was transferred to the British Museum for cleaning, documentation and valuation. The hoard contains gold coins, silver half crowns, shillings and sixpences of James I and Charles I, and silver shillings and sixpences of Elizabeth I, Phillip and Mary. They were deposited in a single event between 1642 and 1644, the early years of the First English Civil War.

Dorset, its arsenals and its ports were taken by Parliament when war broke out in August 1642, but Royalist troops regained a lot of that ground in 1643. Parliament still controlled the ports. While no major battles took place in the county, there was plenty of troop movement on both sides, lots of requisitioning of supplies, sieges, clashes, towns getting burned, just general wartorn misery all around. The kind of turbulence that leads people to put their life savings in a pot and bury it under the floor.

The hoard is a older than 300 years, contains precious metal and is a grouping of multiple coins, it fits the definition of official Treasure. Typically this type of find would end up property of the Crown and a local museum would be given the opportunity to acquire it for the price of the assessed valuation. No museum must have wanted it or been able to raise the cash, because the hoard was returned to the finders and the couple put the hoard up for auction at Duke’s Auctioneers in Dorchester. The total pre-sale estimate for was £35,000. The auction took place on April 23rd, and all together, the coins sold for £60,740. A 1636 Charles I Gold Unite Crown was the biggest seller going for £5,000. A 1627 Charles I Gold Unite took second place with £3,800. The oldest coins, a lot of three Philip and Mary silver shillings from around 1554-1558, sold for £240.

Fish sauce, new amphora type identified on Roman wreck

Ancient

The first in-depth analysis of the cargo of the 4th century Roman shipwreck found off the coast of Mallorca in 2019 has been published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. Researchers took a multipronged approach to the analysis, using petrographic analysis to determine the origin of the amphorae, residue analysis to determine their contents and wood and plant analysis on the ship’s hold. They were able to determine that the boat likely departed from Cartagena in southeastern Spain carrying a cargo of fish sauce, olive oil and wine in four different types of amphora, including one that hasn’t been found anywhere else before. It has been named a Ses Fontanelles I amphora after the find site.

Because the ship is exceptionally well-preserved, many painted inscriptions (tituli picti, on the exterior of the amphorae have survived. They identify the manufacturers, Ausonius et Alunni, and the contents: Liq Fos, short for liquamen flos (flowers of liquamen). At the time this ship was transporting goods, liquamen was a fish sauce distinct from garum, the fermented fish condiment that was ubiquitous in Roman repasts. (From the 5th century the two would become synonymous.)

Fish sauces were produced in large-scale fish processing centers all long the Mediterranean basin. Spain dominated the trade in the western empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Spanish garum amphorae have been found from northern Africa to Hadrian’s Wall. We know from the large number of amphorae found in the homes and commercial establishments of Pompeii that garum was the most popular with about a quarter of the amphorae containing garum. Liquamen was the second most popular.

The analysis of the ichthyofauna has contributed to understand that this fish sauce was basically prepared with small engraulidae particularly anchovies but with presence of sardine. It is possible that also a, so far, invisible cargo occupied part of the space in the galley (Munar Llabrés et al. 2022). These products were carefully stowed in the hold of the merchant ship using vine shoots and herbaceous plants as dunnage for protection.

Romano-German hybrid deity found in Stuttgart

Ancient

Excavations at the site of a Roman fort in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt have unearthed a heavily worn sandstone statue identified by the State Office for Monument Preservation (LAD) as a Romano-Germanic deity. The kneeling figure has a human head and arms, with hands placed on the hips and legs, but the legs are not human in form. They morph into the shape of a snake.

The LAD’s senior archaeologist, Dr. Andreas Thiel, explained: “The figure is a hybrid creature of the Roman-Germanic world of gods, a so-called ‘giant’. As comparable finds show, the figure was once part of a giant Jupiter column. These monuments combine classical antiquity with probably Germanic beliefs: Jupiter, throwing lightning bolts, rides on his horse over a figure crouching on the ground, usually naked and bearded, as can be seen, for example, in a group from Hausen an der Zaber in the Heilbronn district .” However, the creature beneath the horse is often depicted in a pose that seems to be supporting the horse above him. “These groups of figures crowned high stone pillars placed in public squares. “Jupiter is probably depicted here as the weather god and master of the forces of nature,” says Thiel.

Archaeologists have been excavating the site in advance of the expansion of a municipal school. The Roman cavalry fort in the area was occupied from around 100 to 150 A.D., and that grew into a wider civilian settlement occupied until around 260 A.D. The site had been excavated before, and indeed, in a 1908 dig on the edge of the current excavation another part of the high pillar was discovered: a large sculpted base known as the “Four Gods Stone” because it depicted the Roman deities Juno, Minerva, Mercury and Hercules. It was found in a well at the site, and the water helped erode the fragile sandstone to the point that you can’t really make out the figures of the four gods.

Today the Four Gods Stone is in the storage depot of the Württemberg State Museum as it’s not much of a show pony given all the wear and tear. Now that the giant has been found, however, the two pieces together increase each other’s archaeological significance exponentially.

Overall, it is a great stroke of luck that the newly found giant can be linked to a fragment that has long been stored in the Württemberg State Museum depot. This makes it possible to reconstruct a Jupiter giant column that was once placed in the area of ​​an important street intersection in the Roman settlement of Bad Cannstatt. For archaeologists, this is another piece of the puzzle of the state capital Stuttgart’s rich Roman past.