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YOU ARE HERE:>>>REAL or FAKE>Fake shabtis, section 6, page 4

 

 

 

Here is one of these little figurines I have acquired.

 

Let's take a close look at it.

 

 

 

 

 

Just under 3 inches: 72mm.

 

Weight = 8.2 g

 

Seems slightly lighter than I's expect of ancient Egyptian faience.

 

Would have expected around 12g. But this alone does not mean it's a fake.

 

 

 

 

 

The break and repair is quite recent.

 

A tiny piece of tissue paper got stuck on the glue in the join.

 

 

 

The underside is quite shiny and remarkably clean

 

This is very noticeable as there is lots of 'dirt' adherent elsewhere.

 

Stood it in a little bath of acetone for a while and with the glue dissolved it comes apart very easily

 

 

 

The internal appearance of shabtis self glazed by the efflorescence process usually show a fairly obvious gradation of granulation and colour in the core  but not always.

 

Sometimes, as we see here, there is a rather sharp boundary between the glazed layer and the inner material.

 

So one must accept this little piece as being in faience as such and an example of efflorescense self glazing.

 

The 'dirt'  looks like it's glued on!

 

When put in acetone to dissolve the glue at the repair join the dirt on the surface also comes off very easily.

 

I think it's fair to conclude that this is a fake made by the traditional process in faience, deliberately broken and repaired and then 'dirt' sprinkled on in parts  to create the impression of great age.

 

They forgot to make the underside of the foot look similarly old.

 

There is quite a bit of variation in the colours of these types.

 

But despite that, which must be very deliberate, there are not all that many different moulds.

 

Below, you can see the same mould for the three on the right, the next two probably the same mould and the last one a different mould. 

 

The surface appearance varies considerably. One presumes that this is intentional.

 

Perhaps the fakers have noticed that several well knownfake series show a marked consistency even over a period of many years.

 

 

 

The surface crackling of thed glazed layer is a particular give-away.

 

We see similar on modern glazed fake scarabs too. I know how and why an efflorescence glaze will crackle like this but I don't want to mention that here as it gives away too much to the fakers!