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Police recover pharaonic artefacts stolen

Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 3:45 pm
by Winged Isis
Police recover pharaonic artefacts stolen in wake of revolution
Objects found buried at Saqqara Necropolis include several ancient Egyptian statuettes carved from green faience
Nevine El-Aref , Tuesday 22 May 2012

A collection of 35 ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen in the wake of last year's Tahrir Square uprising was recovered on Monday by Tourism and Antiquities police.

The objects were found buried in sand close to the Horemhab funerary complex in the Saqqara Necropolis on the outskirts of Cairo.

According to police, the objects were stolen from neighbouring archaeological sites during the uprising. The thieves, police speculate, had been planning to smuggle the objects out of the country at a later date.


http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... wake-.aspx
The collection consists of several ancient Egyptian statuettes carved from green faience and ranging in length from 5.8 to 6 centimetres.

The objects have been confiscated by the authorities and currently await examination by an archaeological committee to determine their authenticity and place of origin.

Re: Police recover pharaonic artefacts stolen

Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 9:52 pm
by Brian Yare
Interesting. I thought that faience was moulded, not carved.

Re: Police recover pharaonic artefacts stolen

Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 11:14 pm
by Kevininabydos
Actually a lot of Faience pieces were "made to order" and were exclusive to a particular person so the items were "carved" from clay before having the faience glaze applied; sculpted would be a more grammatically correct turn of phrase but carved would be a more accurate description than "molded" which suggests faience items were cast in a mold and as a consequence were all identical, which they are not.