Anybody Know What These Are?? Please Shed Some Light

[dannytyper1987]

Hi everyone i am new to the site & have 2 very interesting items..

These were discovered by a friend from Somalia while he was digging for gold.. they seem to be made from stone, quite heavy and hand made.. the larger one has some writing underneath but i have not got a clue what it is??













Hope someone can shed some light on these

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[Mackaydon]

Welcome to Treasure Net !!
Chessmen?
In sequence, what letters to you read under that piece?
Don.......

[Terry Soloman]

No way..

[Bigcypresshunter]

Maybe someone can translate the 3rd and 4th pics.

[NOLA_Ken]

Looks like chess pieces to me as well, I can't read the bottom of the knight, can you post whatever is written on it, or a better pic?

[Dano Sverige]

They look like seals to me. European the first one. No idea what they'd be doing in Somalia. Also possible they're chess pieces.

[Bigcypresshunter]

Somalian? Somali has been written with four different scripts: an Arabic-based abjad known as Wadaad's writing, a Latin-based alphabet and two native alphabets, the Osmanya script and the Borama script.


Somali alphabets, pronunciation and language

[DCMatt]

Check this...



4th - 5th Century Ethiopian carved stone seal. If you look at other pics of this, to my eye, the images on the handle are distinctly Christian. Possibly a gift from a missionary?

DCMatt

Collections, Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[Bigcypresshunter]

Check this...



4th - 5th Century Ethiopian carved stone seal. If you look at other pics of this, to my eye, the images on the handle are distinctly Christian. Possibly a gift from a missionary?

DCMatt

Collections, Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Good catch Matt and Dano. To my eye those letters may be Ethiopian too.

[dannytyper1987]

Thank you so much everybody for you help so far.. i have no idea about them.. i will try and get some better pictures posted & try to give you a better idea of the scale of them (i should have done this first, my apologies).. the 1st one is much bigger than the smaller 'seal' ??

[Got_4by4]

AND , if you care to, could you impress the "seals" into a piece of soft clay(not play doh, LOL)
It would make sense that the characters are meant to be read that way!?

[StoneWhisper]

This might be something to try to enhance the letters.. take a piece of parchment or regular paper.. and place over the letter on the bottom of the statue.. then with a dull pencil or crayon.. lightly rub over the letters to make a imprint of the letters on the paper..

[dannytyper1987]

some more pictures of the other artifacts i have

[dannytyper1987]

more pics

[dannytyper1987]

bump

[dannytyper1987]

does anybody have any ideas? about these? thanks

[NOLA_Ken]

I still think they are chessmen, also, from looking at the wear patterns, or really lack of wear in places I would expect from use, I really don't think they are terribly old. I won't hazard a guess on age, but my feeling is that they are fairly recent items made to look much older than they actually are. If you look at the bases of the pieces it just seems to me that the wear patterns should be more consistent all the way across if they had been around for any length of time. Here's a link to a site I found, you may want to contact them for help in finding out exactly what you have : art authentication

[dannytyper1987]

Thank You

[allen_idaho]

I don't know about the horse riders, but I do know what the other pieces are.

Those pieces are the seal of solomon which were originally carved and used in ancient Ethiopia along with a similar piece representing the Queen of Sheba. However, the bad news is that they are still reproduced today as folk art and tourist trinkets. Which is what I'm pretty sure you have. The average value is somewhere around $50.

[dannytyper1987]

these look handcrafted, they were found in the ground in somalia