Greek, Roman, Egyptian & Other Antiquities

A group of Mesopotamian antiquities destined for collectors in the UK was discovered to be fake and seized in an operation by Border Force and the British Museum.

When coronavirus first led to a UK lockdown, some dealers reported feeling powerless to help or even to sell. Now traders are launching more and more efforts to transact while doing some good.

The number of items deemed to be Treasure and found by the UK public has hit a record high, according to new figures from the British Museum.

A well-preserved 3000-year-old Bronze age gold sun pendant, known as a bulla, has been bought by the British Museum after it was found by a metal detectorist in Shropshire in 2018.

Dominic Winter in South Cerney, Cirencester is anticipating a bidding battle next week for a finely modelled Hellenistic white marble figure of Aphrodite.

A marble bust, probably depicting Alexander the Great, sold for £320,000 at Adam Partridge in Macclesfield today.

An Afghan limestone sculpture believed to have been stolen during the Afghan civil war (1992-94), when Kabul was besieged, surfaced at an auction house in the UK last year.

A rare Saxon walrus ivory seal matrix will go back on display in the British Museum – after the institution missed out on buying the object twice before.

Sculptures of Buddha dating from the 4th-6th centuries smuggled out of Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago have finally been returned to the country’s national museum.

A rare Umayyad gold dinar dated 105AH (723AD) equalled the auction record for an Islamic coin when it was hammered down at £3.1m at Morton & Eden.

A rare Roman gold coin of the Emperor Constantine I found by a metal detectorist in a field in Somerset was hammered down at £16,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Dix Noonan Webb.

A Hellenistic marble stele that was received as a wedding present in the 1950s has been returned to a museum in Germany after an investigation by antiquities dealers and an Oxford scholar.