6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER ALABASTRON
6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.
With vestigial twin handles, repaired, 6¼ in. (15.8 cm.); a bronze votive hollow container, surmounted by relief figures of snakes on either side of a lizard, circa 4th-1st Century B.C., 3 x 1½ in. (7.9 x 4 cm.); a red breccia conical-shaped jar, 4 3/8 in. (11.1 cm.) high; an alabaster flask, 4¼ in. (10.8 cm.) high; a Cypriot pottery flask, circa 1500-1300 B.C., 3¾ in. (9.5 cm.) high; a silver tetradrachm with the helmeted head of Athena, the reverse with an owl, olive spray and crescent, Athens, 4th Century B.C.; an Egyptian wooden cartouche-shaped fragment 4½ in. (11.5 cm.) long max.; a Roman terracotta cockerel, 2 in. (5 cm.) high; a modern pottery pipe bowl, 2 in. (5 cm.) long; and a green soapstone model of a crowned falcon, probably after the "Hierakonpolis gold and obsidian falcon" in Cairo Museum (JE32158), showing a standing figure of a falcon with a 'gilt' crown and uraeus surmounted by double openwork plumes, with similar metal feet and talons, 2 7/8 in. (7.2 cm.) high (10)

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Lot Essay

Item six (tetradrachm): previously thought to have been struck in Athens for export and trade purposes, it is now accepted that these coins were probably struck in Egypt and, possibly, Syria to facilitate trade. They have been found in large numbers in those regions.

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