GOLD ORNAMENTS
THE making of copies of ancient gold ornaments has been going on for
some years, and is one of the most lucrative branches of the business.
The most extraordinary prices are sometimes paid for these replicas in
the full belief that they are genuine.
A gentleman who is deeply interested in the study of Egyptology was once
approached by a native, who, after some conversation, hinted that he had
some gold antiquities to sell. The interpreter, who was evidently “in
the swim,” pretended to have the utmost difficulty in persuading the
native that he might speak freely, assuring him that he was quite
safe—the gentleman would not inform against him—and that he could with
perfect confidence bring his spoils to be looked at. This at last he
agreed to do.
Excitement grew, and at the hour the man appeared—a stolid, clownish,
apparently ignorant fellah; he seemed the last one to be suspected of a
clever fraud.
The articles were various figures wrought in gold, and after a
protracted interview, a bargain was struck. £3000 was paid for them, and
then they were brought in triumph to Cairo, where I saw them. They were
submitted to expert after expert, and then the truth came out. They were
forgeries. Part of the money paid was returned, but the remainder was
lost.
Another case occurred recently. A man from the Delta went to a dealer in
Cairo and said that one of the farmers in his district had found some
gold things in a tomb while taking soil from the ground, and now he
wanted to find a rich man to buy them, one who would keep his secret so
that the Government should not punish him and take them from him. When
the dealer agreed to go and see them, the man advised him to take £200
or £300 with him. The dealer cautiously said, “No, I shall take only
£20.” It was arranged that he should go to his informant’s village, and
that the finder of the jewels should be brought to him there.
Next day the dealer went to the village, and found that his informant
was out, collecting rents for his land, and some time elapsed before he
came back, carrying in his hands an inkpot and some papers to show how
busy he had been. The dealer asked where the farmer was who had found
the antiquities. The man replied, “I have sent for him, but he has not
yet come.”
“Where does he live?” asked the dealer.
The man pointed to a collection of huts in the distance behind a ruin.
“Come, let us take donkeys and ride there,” said the dealer, “I cannot
stay here all day.”
Donkeys were procured and they set off. On arrival, they found the
farmer working his land. When he came in answer to their call he refused
to admit that he had ever seen any gold antiquities, and vowed that he
had none. When pressed, he swore by all the Prophets and their beards
that he was innocent of finding anything; but, in an aside, he muttered
that he thought the dealer was a member of the secret police, who had
come to take all he had got.
Then the dealer swore to him by all the most sacred oaths that he was
not a member of the police force, so the old man took courage, and
produced one piece—a leaf of gold with two oxen engaged in a fight
stamped upon it. The dealer asked if this was all. The farmer replied,
“Well, you buy this, and when I know how you value it I will go and get
you another.”
Then the dealer, doubting if the specimen was really genuine, asked the
farmer if he had found it, or whether any one had given it to him to
sell. The man swore by the divorce—the _talak bi talata_—that he had
found the things himself, and had dug them up out of the ground.
The dealer thereupon bought some stamped leaves of gold to the value of
£30, and the farmer told him to come again in two days and perhaps he
would show him some more. Then the man who had lured the dealer there
said, “Oh, I have seen in this man’s house a gold sword and a gold belt,
and lots of coins, and if you can get five thousand pounds you can buy
them from him.”
When the dealer got back to Cairo with his purchases, he showed them to
an authority on the subject, who offered to buy them for £250, but the
dealer refused, saying that he wished to wait until he could buy the
rest of the find. Then the prospective purchaser said that, as he had
not time to wait, he would ask a friend to come and buy for him.
The friend came and in the end bought the gold leaves for £250, and
asked the dealer to go and get the rest of the things. Thinking that he
was going to make a good season’s work, the dealer took £300 with him
and went back to the place. This was, in itself, a risky proceeding, as
he might have been murdered and the money stolen; needless to say, he
did not sleep that night.
The intermediary entered into an agreement with the dealer that he would
take no money for introducing him to the finder, but would accept a
commission on the profits made when the articles were sold.
“I will send for the man to come,” he declared, “because people will see
us going to his house, and they will become suspicious and inform the
authorities, who will put the man in prison or punish him in some way.
Stay here, my friend. It is better so. I will send for the farmer to
come.”
“But when will he come?” asked the dealer.
“In the night, when it is dark,” replied the intermediary.
The dealer waited and waited, and between his fear of being killed and
robbed, and his anxiety to get more things, he had no sleep. Each time
the door opened—and it opened many times—he sat up and asked if the man
had come.
The reply was always, “No, not yet.”
In the early morning the dealer became suspicious and said, “Well, I
must go home now, I cannot wait any longer.”
The intermediary said, “Yes, you go home, and if the man brings anything
I will come over to your shop and bring them with me.”
After two days he came alone, bringing a gold ring with a Greek head
upon it, and asked the dealer for £10 in order to buy some more things
from the farmer, who had grown suspicious and would not disclose what
else he had. The dealer gave the money, and after two days the
intermediary returned, this time with two gold coins, some more rings
and stamped gold foil, and saying positively that they were from the
same tomb.
So the dealer bought the coins, rings, and some of the other things for
£80. He took them to an expert authority, who said, “This is excellent,
for now we shall know from the date on the coins the age of the relics.”
A stamp in wax was taken, and sent at once to the museum.
“May I show this coin to a friend?” asked the expert. The dealer gladly
gave permission, and it was taken to a collector of coins, who told them
that that particular coin was never found in Egypt, and, most probably,
it was not genuine.
Then the dealer said, “Well, if this coin is not real, then all the
things which I have bought are frauds; let us examine all of them.”
This was done, and after three hours’ hard work with magnifying glasses,
the expert came to the conclusion that the articles were not really
genuine antiquities, but very clever frauds. Then the dealer returned
the £250 to his patron who had bought the gold leaves. After this he
took the things straight back to the intermediary, who now declined all
responsibility, saying, “You bought from the farmer, who is an ignorant
man and knows nothing.”
The assistance of the police was invoked, and the head of the village
paid £20 to the dealer, intending to reimburse himself from the proceeds
of the farmer’s crops.
In the meantime, the dealer was not idle. He found out that a Jewish
goldsmith in Cairo had prepared some plain gold leaves and had sent them
over to Athens to be stamped. He had then sold them to the intermediary,
and this man had passed them on to the fellah, and between them they had
made this plan. They buried the things in the ground, and after a time
the fellah dug them up, thus being able to swear by the “triple divorce”
that he had taken them out of the ground. Then the intermediary had
looked about him for a promising victim, and selected the dealer, who
lost over the transaction some £60. Some time later, the forgeries were
again sold to a well-known man for £30, and were again detected. This
time the money in full was returned, and the forgeries were melted down.
* * * * *
One night, thirteen years ago, while I was strolling about in the
moonlight after dinner, an Arab came up, and after some conversation
slipped a small parcel into my hand, made a sign of silence, and went
away. I knew the man, so, after a few minutes, I made an excuse and went
indoors to look at the parcel, which was rather heavy and of a peculiar
shape. After undoing the knotted ends of a piece of native cloth, there
came into view a magnificent pair of gold bracelets made in the form of
snakes, with three rings of heavy gold. The make was antique and the
design splendid. I was young at the game then, and the beauty of the
bracelets made them attractive. I hesitated for a time, and the more I
hesitated the less I liked the idea of buying them. I could not be sure
that they were real, and an expert opinion could not, under the
circumstances, be got, to say nothing of the questionable morality of
buying them and thereby encouraging riflers of tombs and stealers of
important links between the present and ancient days. For who can say
what valuable pieces of evidence may not, in this way, be lost?
I wrapped them up again in their dirty cloth and went out into the
moonlight once more. Soon the Arab sidled up to me, and I put the parcel
back into his hand.
“You will buy them?” he queried.
“What is your price?” I asked.
“Thirty pounds,” he replied. “They are worth a hundred and fifty.”
I told him it was a lot of money. He shrugged his shoulders, and held up
his hands as if to show me that he was positively giving them to me.
Then I definitely declined to buy them.
And now, after thirteen years have passed, I hear that they were
afterwards sold for the price of the gold plus a quarter for the antique
design. Old Egyptian gold is 24 carat, and an English sovereign is 18
carat, so that the price came out at about the price of ordinary gold.
And one of those implicated in the transaction has since admitted to me
that the bracelets were forgeries.
* * * * *
Last year I was shown by a collector a small gold scarab. It was quite
hollow and made of very thin gold, and it had the appearance of having
been pressed out in a mould. I was asked to give an opinion on it, but
was able to escape without committing myself. My opinion was that the
scarab was not genuine, but as it was the first example of its kind that
I had seen, I did not care to express too definite an opinion upon the
subject. This year I have seen other gold ornaments bought at the same
place, and I have no hesitation in saying that the scarab was an
exceedingly well-made copy of a genuine one.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PLATE II. NECKLACES AND A BRACELET. 1. A necklace
composed of genuine old carnelian beads, with spurious gold bottles. 2.
Part of a necklace made of silver-gilt filigree work, with coloured
glass scarabs—bought in Algiers. 3. A bracelet made up of imitation
scarabs set in gold of a low carat. 4. A string of genuine old carnelian
and spurious gold beads.]
In Plate II are shown some interesting forged gold antiques. The
necklace (No. 2) was bought by a lady in Algiers. It was represented to
have been brought from Egypt, and was said to be composed of Egyptian
scarabs made of precious stones and mounted in gold filigree work. The
price paid for it was £16. Examination showed that the scarabs were
composed of coloured glass, very badly cut, and the setting was merely
silver gilt. The real value was under ten shillings.
No. 1 shows a combination necklace composed of genuine old carnelian
beads and spurious gold bottles. This was a fashionable form of necklace
in the ancient days, and the present specimen is extremely well
calculated to take in the unwary. The price asked for it was £18. The
man had two others of a somewhat different design with him. The prices
were £12 and £6 respectively. In each case the beads were old, and the
gold had been covered with a kind of lacquer which gave it the
appearance of age. So clever were the gold imitations that at first I
really thought that they were real, and proceeded to bargain for them.
We did not agree upon a price for the two largest necklaces, but I
bought the smaller one (No. 4) for twelve shillings.
No. 3 is a bracelet made up of imitation scarabs set in real gold of a
low carat.
The seller also showed me a heavy gold ring, fashioned like the ring of
Akhnaton, but lacking an inscription on the face of it. For this he
asked £8, but I remembered a tale told me by an excavator to the effect
that in December of 1900 a man of Qus took a gold ring to his camp at
Derr-el-Ballas. On the face was the name of an eighteenth-dynasty queen.
Careful examination showed that the ring was a forgery. Four months
later the excavator saw the same ring in the shop of a dealer in Luxor,
who had paid £5 for it, and this made me cautious. The following day the
man returned with a friend, and again we proceeded to bargain for the
two large necklaces. Hamid Ibrahim, to whom I am much indebted for his
assistance, and in whose shop the transaction was taking place, was
suspicious and uneasy. Time after time he examined the necklaces with a
powerful magnifying glass. The men watched him calmly, never showing by
the quiver of an eyelid that they minded his examining them as much as
he liked. We had narrowed the transaction down until now there was
little separating us in price, when again Ibrahim took up the bottle
necklace, and began looking at it with his glass. Suddenly he made a
quick movement which I understood at once, and then he laid the necklace
down. Silently he handed me the glass, and pointed out a bottle. I took
up the necklace, and there on the bottle he had indicated, was a very
fine line where the gold had been folded over. I handed the necklace
back to Ibrahim, who took a needle and ran it along underneath the edge
of the gold, which he thus turned back. Then we saw that it was no
thicker than a sheet of thin paper, while the bottles had been cast in
plaster of Paris, and the gold foil very cleverly folded over them. I
did not buy the necklaces, but I obtained the loan of one of them (No.
2, Plate II).
As I have said, the men made no objection to our examination of the
bottles. They looked us frankly in the face; they would have cheated us
if they could, but they had failed. They did not consider that they were
in any way to blame for their attempt. They told us frankly, after we
had found them out, that the gold forgeries were all made by one man,
who was such a wonderful artist that he had been offered a high rate of
pay to go to Europe to work there, but that he had refused. It is
certain that more will be heard of this man’s work, for, said my
informant, “There is no one in the world so clever as he is in making
gold imitations.”
I have purposely refrained from describing the gold forgeries made and
sold by Europeans in Egypt, preferring to keep entirely to the Egyptians
and their work.
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