David Aaron Ltd

A mummiform ushabti in blue faience. Four registers of hieroglyphic characters are painted around the lower half of the ushabti, with a vertical column of hieroglyphs in the centre o...

Bronze statue of the goddess Neith, striding, her left foot extended forward. Her left hand is extended forward and formally held a papyrus sceptre, a fragmentary ankh is visible in her right hand. She wears a close-fitting sheath dress, incised with a broad usekh collar, and carefully engraved bracelets and armlets. On her head is the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, decorated with vertical striations and restored spiral and spire. Her face is finely molded, with a broad upturned nose and electrum-overlaid eyes and eyebrows. Neith was one of the earliest recorded gods in the Egyptian pantheon, worshipped from early in the Predynastic era through to the arrival of Roman rule. A war goddess and goddess of weaving, she was the patron goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the city of Zau (Sais, in the 5th Nome of Lower Egypt) in the Delta. A powerful and popular goddess, she was, according to the Iunyt (Esna) cosmology, the creator of the world and the mother of the sun, Ra. This made her the mother of all of the gods, who often came to her to settle their disputes. Her symbols are the bow and arrows and a sword and shield as a war goddess, a weaving shuttle as a funerary goddess, and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt as the goddess of creation and mother goddess. She is usually depicted as a woman wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, however, she is occasionally depicted as a cow in connection with her role as the mother of Ra. The use of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver sometimes called ‘green-gold’, for the eyes speaks to the high status of the object. Electrum had been used by the Egyptians since at least the 3rd millennium B.C., but, give its rarity, was reserved for the most expensive and important objects. Most electrum used in Egypt was imported from Nubia, though some was found there. Published: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, February 25th, 1971, no. 70, illus. Sotheby’s, New York, June 5th, 1999, no. 31, illus. David Aaron Ltd...

A tall anthropomorphic stele of carved granite, divided into two distinct regions of the body and face. The body is a single unarticulated block, but the facial features are outlined...

Sirens were dangerous bird-like females who tempted sailors with their hauntingly beautiful song. In Homer’s Odyssey (XII, 39) Odysseus and his sailors were warned about the lethal c...

Dagger L: 27.8 cm, Luniform bronze, possibly a belt buckle L: 10.8 cm, Shield-shaped bronze with a point Diam: 6.5 cm, Pommel Diam: 3.7 cm, Violin-bow brooch L: 17.5 cm, P-Shape...

A rectangular marble slab carved with the Latin inscription ‘QVIRINIAE C(retr.) L / FELICLAE / OLLAM DAT / C VALERIVS PYLODAMVS’, which translates as ‘Gaius Valerius Pylodamus gave t...

A very rare and near-complete copper-alloy hanging bowl and associated fittings. Crafted from a single sheet of bronze, the body of the bowl is curved, with a slightly recessed lip. ...

An impressive skull of an Edmontosaurus, a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, 68-66 million years ago. The three rows of sixty or more teeth on either side of the jaw, known as the ‘dental battery’, mark the Edmontosaurus as part of the Hadrosauridae, or duckbill family of dinosaurs. It belongs to the flat-skulled, or solid-crested, Hadrosaurinae, which replaced the older hollow-crested hadrosaurs. Edmontosaurus was one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to ever exist, living shortly before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. The Edmontosaurus was named in 1917 by Lawrence Lambe, after a partial specimen from Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. The existence of large Edmontosaur bone beds...

A partial skull of a fully grown Triceratops prorsus from the Maastrichtian, late Cretaceous period (68-65 million years ago). It is in three parts, and has an impressively sized nas...

A rare Gogotte formation – a millions-of-years old naturally shaped sandstone concretion, consisting of tiny quartz fragments held together by cal...

Two pairs of two halves from the same bar, finely detailed, with pointed ears and eyebrows, opaque yellow face, opaque red on the mouth, nose, eyes and ears, translucent cobalt blue edges to the mouth, nose and ears, with translucent emerald green leaves above and between the translucent cobalt blue brows and eye line, translucent pink pupils, with translucent cobalt blie and opaque white snake scales below the face, in translucent cobalt blue matrix, cut in the lower part of a cartouche design. These rare heads might represent the Agathos Daimon, the tutelary deity of Alexandria, who was also identified with Serapis, the male counterpart of Isis-Thermouthis (who in turn was a graecisized form of the early snake harvest goddess Renenutet). In a statue of Isis-Thermouthis in Alexandria museum (no. 25773, ex-collection King Farouk I), reproduced in Gotten, Pharaonen, no. 151, the snake goddess...

This impressive bust is depicted with head turned slightly to the right and gaze lifted. His eyes are articulated, with the pupils indicated with a drill, giving the face a striking realism. The shoulders are draped with a cloak. Straight brows sit beneath a mass of thickly curling hair, which continues to a full beard. It is worked with great skill, evident in the heavy drill work articulating and highlighting the voluminous curls, and the highly polished surfaces, giving the appearance of soft skin. The contrast between these textures gives a chiaroscuro affect which is one of the main traits of the best Antonine busts. Roman marble portraits reached their apotheosis of craftmanship and technique under the Antonine emperors, as is evidenced in this masterful bust. The evolution of the style may be traced back to the emperor Hadrian, who was the first emperor to wear a full beard. The articulation of pupils and iris appears on busts of his lover Antinous, a novelty which continued in later Antonine portraits, such as this one. The features of this bust point to a possible identification of Emperor Lucius Verus...