A Timely Salute to TimeLine’s Tried and Trusted Team: The Vetting Committee

Regular readers of our STORIES features will no doubt recollect our January 2024 issue with its revealing account of the efforts made by Committee members as they successfully winnow fakes, forgeries and items of doubtful provenance in the gruelling nine-stage elimination process that ensures none but genuine lots go to our auction room to come under the fall of a TimeLine auctioneer’s gavel.

More than a year has passed since publication of that memorable feature, for which we continue to receive grateful thanks from readers who appreciate its clear expatiation of the behind-the-scenes work carried out by the Committee. A link titled Our Specialists at the end of the feature takes you to pages that carry summaries of each consultant's qualifications, career, specializations and published works. Read the summaries to identify a specialist whose field covers the sort of lots you may be planning to bid on in a forthcoming auction. She/He may have published a book, magazine article, or academic paper that proves beneficial in furthering your interest and helping you with a decision on whether to bid in a future auction on a lot that catches your eye.

To whet your reading appetite, and hopefully provide you with an interesting extract from a book, magazine feature, or academic paper to enjoy until the next TimeLine Auction opens for bidding, here are one or two short reviews of works published by members of TimeLine’s Vetting Committee; or extracts from their academic papers.

Neritan Ceka, author of
Butrint: A Guide to the City and Its Monuments

Extract from the text:
“Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, lies in south-west Albania, 20km south of the modern port of Saranda. It was probably settled in the 8th century BC by Corfiot traders. This was almost certainly the town associated with the legend of Aeneas.Today, of all the great classical sites of the Mediterranean, it is the least known, the least frequented and the least spoilt. This book provides a comprehensive history of the region, looking closely at its monuments, and showing information on local accommodation and transportation services.”



 

Ronald Bonewitz, author of
Rock and Gem: The Definitive Guide to Rocks, Minerals, Gemstones, and Fossils

Extract from a review:
Written by a geologist with decades of experience, and created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Rock and Gem combines the author’s knowledge with hundreds of stunning photos from the Smithsonian's extensive collections. The teamwork makes professionalknowledge accessible to readers at all experience levels. This is the ultimate portrait of Earth's geological riches - rocks, minerals, crystals, and gems - from their primeval origins to their astonishing modern-day uses and appeal. This book will teach you how to identify more than 450 rock and mineral specimens through stunning photographs and detailed characteristics.


 

Dane Kurth, author of,
The Names Of Games On Provincial Coins


Extract from the text:
“The images on the coins bearing the name of these athletic meetings were quite varied. The most common types show one, two or more prize urns with or without palm branches, sometimes on a table. Other depictions show athletes, a deity seated or standing, a racing quadriga, local temple etc.
According to Scanlon ("Eros and Greek Athletics", 2002) there were 270 professional athletic festivals in the Greco-Roman world during the Roman imperial period.
Beside the four principle games mentioned above, many other events in honour of deities or the imperial family were celebrated on coins. They are listed here in two sections.”

A Dane Kurth short review of
The Labours And Tasks Of Herakles On Ancient Coins
by Reinhard Bräue; published in Zeitschrift für Numismatik, 1910, pp 35-112).
“This article (56 pages) is based on a 1900 article by Bräuer, but with many modern references and previously unknown varieties added. Over 820 coins are now listed.[..]”

Dr Malcolm Jones, author of
The Secret Middle Ages: Discovering the Real Medieval World

Extract from a review:
His very well documented and comprehensive book is an enjoyable and fully original, if somewhat controversial, work presenting [..] an impressive visual environment of the great mass of ordinary people, mostly English or occasionally Continental Europeans, who lived between 1200 and 1500 A.D.
In her Foreword to Jones's information-packed and fascinating book, Marina Warner makes many profound and pertinent observations. She had been greatly impressed with Jones's show in the Royal Society of Antiquaries: the slides of winged penises, flying vulvas, belled cocks, pudenda on stilts, sows and donkeys spinning thread, lubricious widows and other symbols of vigour, and fertility and misogynist motifs. Having subsequently read his publications on sexual culture in the Middle Ages, she concludes:
These emblems have revealed new depth to the fantastical, bold, rude and secular mentality of the ordinary medieval man and woman ... scholarly, serious and highly original. But it was also inevitably funny. There is no other response to these images and punning devices than laughter ... a release from embarrassment, a recognition of rudeness and outrageousness, as well as a kind of shock that the unspeakable has been spoken, the obscene brought in from the wings to take centre stage.

Paul Whelan, author of
Mere Sticks Of Wood

This broad-based investigation offers new perspectives on stick shabtis and their role in the cultic milieu of Thebes in the late 17th and early 18th Dynasties. Developed from a case study of examples in the Petrie Museum, and drawing upon excavation reports, archival material and a comparative examination of their physical characteristics, the work reconsiders the generally held view, epitomised by Flinders Petrie, that stick shabtis are "mere sticks of wood".