LAPIS LAZULI FIGURES AND
IRIDESCENT GLASS
GENUINE lapis lazuli figures are extremely rare, and generally small,
the most valuable ones in the museums being only a few inches high. It
was thought at first that it would be impossible to make imitations
which would pass for the real stone, but on the demand arising it has
been met.
I was riding from Deir-el-Bahari down to the river one day when a youth
rose up from the side of the road, and shuffled forward to speak to me.
“You buy antīcas?” he said in a whisper, casting a sidelong glance of
apprehension at a mounted policeman who was following at about seventy
yards distance.
I told him to show me what he had, whereupon he produced a blue bowl of
earthenware with a pattern of the lotus flower on it. Porcelain, he
called it, “and very fine work, sir. I dig in the tombs, sir.”
Now if there was one thing that this youthful Ananias did not do, it was
to dig in the tombs. It is one of the worst offences in Egypt to dig and
take away antiquities without permission. This constitutes a crime not
to be expiated without years of imprisonment in the Tourah stone
quarries.
The price of the blue bowl was £3. This at once betrayed it, for no one
knows better than these sellers of antiquities the value of the genuine
article. £20 or more would not have bought it, had he really dug it up
out of a tomb. When I declined to buy the bowl, he produced various
fragments of alabaster vessels which were genuine enough, and then some
odd Ushebti figures, genuine but very poor in make and colour, and not
worth the trouble of taking home. When these were declined, he still ran
alongside of my donkey for perhaps half a mile, from time to time
casting hunted looks at the mounted policeman not very far away.
Presently he cast an agonised look at me and made a sound indicative of
silence; then he produced a statue bound up in old rags, thrust it on my
saddle in front of me, and with exceedingly well-acted fright, implored
me not to let the policeman see it. Our conversation was carried on in
Arabic, so that he knew well that I lived in the country, and yet he
looked me straight in the face, and with his hand on his heart, lied.
I unrolled the rags, and there was a wonderful statue of Horus, about
six inches high, beautifully moulded, in what was apparently lapis
lazuli, with most natural cracks and fissures running through the
substance. It was the first time I had met with this particular
imitation, and for a moment I was dumfounded. I thrust the statue under
my coat, and turned to look at our friend, the policeman. He was still
at the same distance away, watching us, but the smile had broadened on
his face, and this gave the whole thing away. He had evidently witnessed
the same play a dozen times before, and perhaps a dozen people had
thrust that statue under their coats, and turned to look at him; so that
he knew at once the stage which the negotiations had reached. Sometimes
the young man would bring off the coup, when, no doubt, they would
celebrate the occasion in a manner which would recompense the policeman
for his non-interference.
“How much?” I asked.
“Thirty pounds,” was his reply.
“But it is very dear,” I objected, “and it does not seem to be a genuine
antiquity.”
“By the Prophet,” swore the boy, “I dug it up myself in the tombs.
Please, gentleman, do not let the policeman see.”
His intense anxiety was well acted. I looked at the statue again. It was
the work of an artist, made in glass, with all the characteristics of
the precious stone, and then sand-blasted to give it the appearance of
age. Its value, had it been genuine, would have been many hundreds of
pounds. Its actual value was a few shillings. Then we proceeded to
bargain. I could have bought the figure for £3, but lower than that he
would not come down; so I wrapped the statue up, and gave it back to
him. Again he tried to sell me the blue bowl, offering this time to take
ten shillings for it. When I said that I had no change, he produced a
bag with a considerable quantity of gold and silver in it, and extracted
an English half-sovereign. His perseverance was so marked that in the
end I bought a few imitations, so that he might not have had his long
run for nothing.
On returning to Luxor, I found in a shop a large head of Horus in blue,
apparently lapis lazuli. It was in a glass case, and was evidently
considered to be very valuable. I asked to see it, and inquired from the
dealer what it was. He, decent old fellow, smiled, and, turning his
hands upwards, mentioned the name of a well-known Egyptologist,
connected with the museum, and said, “He says perhaps it is lapis
lazuli.” As a matter of fact, it was glass imitation.
At the last Agricultural Show in Cairo, there were several stalls for
the sale of antiquities. At one of these I was shown Hathor, the sacred
cow, and the figure of a man. The price asked was £40 for the cow, and
£30 for the figure of a man. They were both wrapped up in pieces of old
rag, and only brought out after I had seen most of the antiquities on
the stall. After informing the man that I knew they were only glass
imitations, I tried to buy the figures, but it was impossible to get
them for a reasonable sum. The lowest amount he would accept for the cow
was £8, and £4 for the man.
[Illustration: PLATE III. WOODEN USHEBTI FIGURES. Made at Gurna.]
Later on, an itinerant vendor offered to sell me the figure shown in
Plate X., No. 4. When we had agreed that it was imitation, and made of
glass, I asked him to name a price. The lowest that he would take was
£3. I was somewhat puzzled by the consistent high prices asked even for
a fraud which had been detected, and after a great deal of argument, the
man indignantly informed me that some men from America come each year to
Cairo, at the end of the season, and purchase these blue glass figures
for sums ranging between £3 and £7. They take them back to America,
where they are sold for very high prices—my informant mentioned £50 and
£100 each. This would quite explain why they refused to sell them to me
at their intrinsic value.
* * * * *
There is a very considerable market for old iridescent glass. A small
bottle will fetch from £1 to £3, and good specimens from £2 to £8. There
is a moderate quantity of these bottles found in a district called
Rakah. The bottles are extremely fragile, but good specimens are very
beautiful objects and find quick buyers. There is a demand, and the
ingenuity of the Egyptian is keenly exercised to meet it. Imitations are
being made by pouring a chemical on the inside and the outside of
specially made thin bottles and glasses. This forms a film which gives
an appearance of iridescence; but in many cases the film can be detached
with the point of a knife, and thus the fraud is made palpable.
One day a youth brought an iridescent bottle for me to buy, and as I
happened to be out he sat down in the sun and waited. Upon my return he
came up and began to explain that he had brought a beautiful bottle to
sell to me, but had sat upon it and smashed it. Now he would sell it to
me very cheap. Bottles made of iridescent glass are very thin, and the
fragments were quite useless, but day after day the boy haunted the
place, wanting to sell me the broken bottle “very cheap.” I much
regretted the unfortunate accident, for the bottle, though small, had
been of perfect shape and beautiful colour. At last I offered to buy
another should he have one for sale, but he walked sullenly away and
never came back.
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