DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0290
25-1 RELIC-COLLECTING — STATE OF THE MONUMENTS.
They are bought from him to be carried up the river
into Nubia, where they are favourite amulets or orna-
ments, as mothers greatly delight to attach one or two
to the girdles of short thongs, which constitute the only
article of dress of their children. It sometimes hap-
pens, too, that through this very medium those spurious
imitations come into the possession of travellers, who
may not be likely to suspect the pedigree of objects
presenting themselves thus in remote situations and
under such unsophisticated circumstances.
But Ali Gamooni is capable of considerably more
artistic efforts than the production of merely the in-
ferior kinds of scarabsci to suit the light purses of
Nubian mothers. The more elegant and well-finished
descriptions are not beyond his range. The material
he uses is, for the most part, that which the ancients
themselves also largely employed, a close-grained,
easily cut limestone, which, after it is graven into
shape and lettered, receives a greenish glaze by being
baked in a shovel with brass filings. Working in
this way some of his copies are singularly good;
and as for his examples of the unimportant coarser
sorts, which the old Egyptians with little care seem
to have produced in the same manner, they are not
to be distinguished from antiques. He has now had
long practice, for I find in an incidental note that
a writer on Egyptian subjects takes credit for having
furnished Ali, some twenty years ago (as it would
appear), with broken penknives and other appliances
to aid his already manifested talent, in the somewhat
They are bought from him to be carried up the river
into Nubia, where they are favourite amulets or orna-
ments, as mothers greatly delight to attach one or two
to the girdles of short thongs, which constitute the only
article of dress of their children. It sometimes hap-
pens, too, that through this very medium those spurious
imitations come into the possession of travellers, who
may not be likely to suspect the pedigree of objects
presenting themselves thus in remote situations and
under such unsophisticated circumstances.
But Ali Gamooni is capable of considerably more
artistic efforts than the production of merely the in-
ferior kinds of scarabsci to suit the light purses of
Nubian mothers. The more elegant and well-finished
descriptions are not beyond his range. The material
he uses is, for the most part, that which the ancients
themselves also largely employed, a close-grained,
easily cut limestone, which, after it is graven into
shape and lettered, receives a greenish glaze by being
baked in a shovel with brass filings. Working in
this way some of his copies are singularly good;
and as for his examples of the unimportant coarser
sorts, which the old Egyptians with little care seem
to have produced in the same manner, they are not
to be distinguished from antiques. He has now had
long practice, for I find in an incidental note that
a writer on Egyptian subjects takes credit for having
furnished Ali, some twenty years ago (as it would
appear), with broken penknives and other appliances
to aid his already manifested talent, in the somewhat