Posted on 12/07/2018 10:02:14 AM PST by ETL
The pottery vessel, adorned with the painting of an antelope, caught the eye of Karl Martin while he was browsing a yard sale five years ago. He picked the jar up, along with another pot, for about $5 (4 pounds).
"I liked it straight away," Martin said in a statement from Hansons Auctioneers, where he now works and where the pottery was auctioned — selling for about $100 (80 pounds) in November.
The jar dates to the Indus Valley Harappan civilization, which thrived in the northwestern regions of South Asia during the Bronze Age, according to James Brenchley, head of antiquities at Hansons Auctioneers.
The Indus, along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, is one of the three cradles of civilizations in the Old World, he added.
That backstory was unbeknownst to Martin, a collector, at the time of his purchase. So who could blame him for plopping the jar in the bathroom, right?
"I used it in the bathroom to store my toothpaste and toothbrush — it even ended up getting a few toothpaste marks on it," he said.
Years later, while helping Brenchley unload a van at the auction house, Martin noticed some of the pottery going up for auction looked similar to his toothbrush holder.
"The painting style looked the same, and it had similar crudely painted animal figures," he said in the statement.
Brenchley examined the pot and confirmed that it was a genuine artifact from Afghanistan dating to 1900 B.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’ve got a Viking helmet to sell him he can use as a sort of hat rack.
I got it at a flea market sale in Iceland.
Similarly, for eight years in Washington DC, a celebrity used and reused old parchment as toilet paper. It wasn’t until eight years later (late in 2016) that enough people noticed and we started cleaning the mess off our Constitution. I just pray we can keep that artifact clean in the future.
Little did he realize that its original purpose was an overnight urinal.
fyi
He only got $100 bucks for it?
BTTT
Doesn't sound odd, doesn't it. Might be a typo? Will check elsewhere.
Looks like something you’d find on those back shelves at Marshalls.
Apparently is true...
From another source:
“The pot sold for £80 ($100), at the top end of its pre-sale estimate. Sure, it’s not exactly a fortune, but it still amounts to a 2,000 percent profit. Can you say the same of your toothbrush holder?”
“Doesn’t sound odd, doesn’t it. Might be a typo? Will check elsewhere.”
DOES sound odd, doesn’t it.
I guess the market for 4000 yo pottery has really tanked!
I’m sure he could easily have gotten much more. The guy doesn’t seem very bright. Here he has a piece of pottery with animals hand painted on it and he doesn’t bother to have it checked out by a pro? And he actually works in the field.
From that other source I linked to above...
“I liked it straight away,” he told the BBC. “I suspected it might be very old but forgot all about it.” Martin even admits that he may have gotten some toothpaste stains on the antiquity while it was pressed into service in his bathroom.
“I specialize in British history rather than world history so I wasn’t an expert in this field and was none the wiser,” Martin told Metro.
It was Hansons’ antiquities expert, James Brenchley, who identified the piece as the work of the Bronze Age Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley, a region of modern Afghanistan known as a cradle of early civilization. “It was probably brought back to the UK years ago by wealthy travelers,” he told the Daily Mail.
Once he knew what he had on his hands, Martin offered the pot at Hansons’ November antiquities auction. The auction house described the piece as “a well painted bubous [sic] shaped pottery jar with painted decoration depicting an antelope and motifs,” dating it to 1,900 BC.”
I use a toothbrush holder and who knows where that thing has been ,yuck
That picture pegged my gaydar meter.
I have a collection of ancient coins that my Grandfather collected dating back to approx 400 BC through 400 AD. One might think that they'd be rare and valuable. The truth is, there are very few people who actually collect these things, and there are enough of the coins to satisfy the demand. The result it that they aren't worth much. But it's cool to hold a coin that was circulating with Alexander the Great was alive, or one that is thought to be the same type as the 20 pieces of silver that Judas got. Since they aren't worth that much, I've been able to let my daughter and her friends actually hold such pieces of history, which is priceless.
As an artist, I wouldn't call the antelope crudely painted. It is actually quite well done, with proper shading, etc.
grandma moses of California...
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