YOU ARE HERE:>>REAL or FAKE>>Fake shabtis, section 2, page 6 .

 

 

Let's take a look more closely at one of these fakes.

This one is actually quite an old one: not one of the more recent production.

The photo on the left is the one we are looking at.

A pretty well made replica.

The photo at right below is a genuine example for comparison next to the one under consideration. 

 




The shabti on the right is genuine.

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The one under consideration has very fine crazing of the surface.

The other photo is of another fake with a larger type of crazing.






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When there is surface damage or cracks it's well worth looking carefully at the thickness of the glaze.




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Some  specialist investigation..... X-ray Fluorescence (XRF)

 

 

Some information here.  

 

 

XRF is an non destructive elemental analysis technique capable of highly accurate determinations for major elements.

 

 

  • This technique will tell us about the composition of the surface of the object.
  • While it is NOT a useful method for determining a fake shabti from a genuine one, it is nevertheless in some circumstances informative.

  • I will soon be doing further pages about XRF including some pages about the NON usefulness of this technique with faience objects .

  • There is  some information about it's more valid use with a pair of metal artifacts here.

 

 

 

 

The results for this piece.

 





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  • Not shown above is the very frequent large variation of of measured results one obtains from different parts of the object. I will go into this in more detail on another page soon.
  • However this analysis shows the presence of zinc and titanium in fair amount, and small  but significant amounts of vanadium, barium and strontium; and significantly an absense or most oddly concentration of certain elements one will find in genuine faience objects.

 

These are the particular results which give cause for concern.

 

  •  Zinc 4.9 %

 

Look at this compilation table from Ancient Egyptian faience: An analytical survey of Egyptian faience from Predynastic to Roman times by Kaczmarczyk and  Hedges.

 

 



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  • Titanium 2.3%
  • Vanadium 0.7%

 

There is no analytica data for the Ti and Vn  content of Egyptian sands.  

But Egyptian glass analyses show vanadium oxides as V2O5 between only 0.01% and 0.03%.

 

  • Barium 0.2%

Not found in Egyptian faience above 0.1%

 

  • Strontium 0.1%

Only found in Egytptian faience as a trace at around 0.05%

 

  • This fake is probably not made in faience at all. It is made in some ceramic material, possibly even terracota itself and is covered in a modern zinc titanium glaze  used by craft potters for terracottas.

March 2011

More on the XRF analysis of ancient faience>>>>>

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August '10.

  

Alas, more and more of the fake Padi Aset shabtis appearing on the market. some are so well made that some antiquities delaers are being  fooled by them.

 

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. Genuine examples:

 



Lots of different types of this particular fake. Different colours and different fake surface effects.

 



Though they don't appear to be  being manufactured any more, they of course still turn up from time to time.

This seller was persuaded to remove it from eBay.

(December 2014)



Here are a pair on sale for a lot of money - over £3000 !

These have fooled  an otherwise reliable  antiquities dealer.



 

 

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