Stubborn eBayer and Expensive Bazaar Archaeology for Aficionados

       EBay, Bazaar archaeology    

Over on eBay you can buy a sintered/glazed steatite scarab mounted in a gold ring for a mere Buy now price of £995.00. Seller peterlancaster (1771) from London has an ANCIENT EGYPTIAN FAIENCE SCARAB RING SET IN SWIVEL 15CT GOLD MOUNT. SUPERB!

Large size ancient Egyptian scarab beetle with hieroglyphics on back, set in a very fine quality 15ct swivel mount. Gold work and faience scarab in excellent condition. Looks really fantastic and unusual when worn. Shank size - T 1/2 (can be altered bigger or smaller). Weight - 10.3 gms.  

No collection history is even hinted, let alone any indication where it came from, and how a piece like that would get on the market. The photo does not support the identification as faience, and the gold mount looks as good as new. More disturbingly, the piece is covered with dried loamy/alluvial mud which always makes me suspicious (how is it "used"?). The seller has a lot of antique jewellery and other antiques, some rather kitschy. Note the seller describes this as "antique" and "used" and "antique ancient Egyptian". The lack of collection history is matched by a lack of literature cited supporting its identification as "ancient". He does not venture to tell the potential buyer how many Maatkare scarabs there are, and how they look in comparison with this one. Neither from the 'About me' page is there any indication what qualifications Peter Lancaster has for authenticating ancient Egyptian artefacts, or judging the veracity of the claims made by its previous seller. So on what can a potential buyer place their trust?

There is some discussion on an antiquities collectors' forum near you:

mmnestic2001Jan 15 #97913
Hi, I explained carefully and with several photos, but this fellow doesn't want to believe that this is a cheap tourist souvenir. Maybe a few more helpful comments might convince him he's wrong? Cheers, Bron.
PS: The scarab is badly copied from one for Hatshepsut of course.

[in fact there were two other royal Maatkares in 21st and 22nd dynasties] Well, mnestic/Bron[Lipkin] is one of the dealers who knows what he's talking about, so Peter Lancaster should jolly well listen. The scarab is indeed a modern tourist fake, the hieroglyphs Maat-ka-re are roughly gouged out and ill-spaced, hardly fitting for a royal inscription. The gold ring too seems to be of modern manufacture, using modern wire. The scarab itself is exactly the sort of thing one might have picked up in the Luxor souk in the 1970s, 1980s or later, or bought from a "pssst-come-over-here" hawker of dubious antiquities in the car park of the Valley of the Kings or Temple of Hatshepsut.