Dear Rube,
For some reason, I thought I'd answered this query of yours, but I see that I didn't, so here goes.
When steamship passengers started coming to Egypt from the UK in the 1840s/1850s, and would tour the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings near Cairo, etc.; they wanted to find treasures to bring home. Sneaky Egyptian tour guides would buy Daoguang snuff bottles and 'salt' the sites, and get a big (or small) 'baksheesh' [tip/bribe] for pointing the 'Effendi' [Sir/Madam] towards his/her 'prize'. The 'tourai' didn't want to just buy their treasure; they wanted to 'find' it.
From the 1840s to about 1870, one can read in people's journals how they or travel companions 'found' Chinese snuff bottles in pyramids, etc. Their gullibility was amazing. After 1870, we don't find any mention of this practice; just fake faience figurines and scarabs.
Most writers of Journals to the Land of Israel also visited Egypt, while they were already 'in the neighbourhood'.
I've read a few Journals, to see what they had to say about Israeli sites, and looked at the Egyptian 'portion' to see if snuff bottles were mentioned. And a friend who is doing her doctorate on 19th & 20th C. Journals of visits to 'The Holy Land', looked into mentions about snuff bottles found in Egypt, at my request. I wonder if the later visitors got more savvy, or what?
Meanwhile, the 'genuine fake antiquity market' is alive and well; though during the Moslem Brotherhood year of terror in Egypt under Mursi (2011-2012), I was offered lots of antiquities from Egypt by Arabs with ties there.
I refused, and contacted our Antiquities Authority; who arrested 2 of the 'dealers', confiscated a large amount of serious Egyptian art treasures, from Ancient Egyptian, through Hellenistic and Roman, to Islamic periods, and returned the haul to Egypt under General al-Sisi; the treasures are now safely back in the museums in Cairo, Alexandria and near Abu Simbel, from whence they were stolen.
The Egyptian authorities have invited me to visit so I can be thanked; but I ain't risking my neck - if the thieves and their fences have been caught and punished, that doesn't mean their families, many of whom also worked with them, would not like to stab or shoot the 'kaffir' [infidel] who lost them their meal ticket. And besides, I can't bring my new Smith and Wesson 9 mm. parabellum pistol with me to Egypt.
Oh for the good old days, when you could transport your personal weaponry across borders with impunity. Now, only the terrorists seem able to.
Sort of like the stupid 'Gun-Free Zone' idea. Oddly enough, the murderers, terrorists, and crazies, don't seem to obey the signs; only the law-abiding gun owners do. Strange that, no?
Best,
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey
I don't know, Tom, ancient glass sounds pretty cool!
Joey, do you know anything about old Egyptian Snuff Bottles?
Are they legitimate or were they meant to deceive? There is a
squib written about them in the Hitt book, but I've always been
curious?
Cheers,
Rube.
