David Knell

Octavius, Your lamps are very attractive but I'm afraid your third one (bull's head on discus) almost certainly belongs to the Bulgarian Volute Series and has all the characteristics (fabric/slip, artificial deposits, shoulder treatment, lipped nozzle, artistic style, and other giveaway idiosyncrasies) of the First Batch, made from about 2004 to 2011. https://romulus2.com/lamps/fakes/fakes1.shtml#bulgarianvolute David

Donna, That's an extremely impressive summary of your new lamp! Some scholars have attempted an interpretation of the shoulder decoration on these Hayes Type IIa, produced by stamping poinçons into the damp plaster mould, but I suspect that most of them are simply abstract successors of the more naturalistic shoulder stamps appearing on a few of the earlier Hayes Type I and are merely decorative. The thin concentric circles on the base of both your lamp and the Getty example are a standard feature on Hayes Type IIa from Byzacena in central Tunisia and are unrelated to the shoulder decor. > the dealer identified it as a deer, but there are no deer in North Africa! You're forgetting the 'Barbary stag' (Cervus elaphus barbarus), a subspecies of red deer native to Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. They were presumably far more populous in antiquity and are quite often depicted, typically with large branching antlers, on Roman lamps from North Africa. It should also be borne in mind that lamps made in North Africa were largely intended for export and their makers did not necessarily restrict iconography to only native fauna. However, I'm no zoologist but I think you may well be right that the animal with straight short horns on your lamp is more likely to be a species of antelope. David

John, Karawani replied privately to my earlier post about his fake bronze lamps, apologised, removed those from his website and vowed to never sell them again. Hmm, we can see how that played out a few years later ... Ancient Heritage: An enduring tradition (ancient-heritage.blogspot.com) No reply to my other post on the general fakes - but to be fair, what could he say? I suspect he knows very well what he's doing. The items just mysteriously disappeared from his website the next day. > Maybe it is a body used to cover up shenanigan's? I think that's a pretty spot-on assessment of the AIAD. When a real association won't have you, no problem: just create your own! David

Indeed, while a large proportion of the stock sold by Artemission is authentic, his reputation is not exactly encouraging. One of my blog posts from a few years ago ... Ancient Heritage: "There is no evidence" that these antiquities are fakes (ancient-heritage.blogspot.com) David

If you take photos of coins against a busy background, the camera automatically focuses on the background. If you take photos of coins against a plain background, the camera automatically focuses on the coins.