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Old 10-15-2004, 06:00 PM
Toaster Toaster is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Donating ancient antiquities to museums

I have just recently come under possession of some several-thousand-year-old human artsy things. I'm not into this sort of thing, and thought perhaps a museum would enjoy having these to display, rather than them being not-that-cherished in my home. They used to be in a touring museum exhibit a few decades ago, I know.

How would I go about seeing if local history museums (I'm in Salt Lake City) were interested in them? What would I expect to happen if I do so (ie. them take the items and check legitimacy for a week or something)? What kind of museums would be interested in such things? Or heck, what ARE the items? They are labelled:

Orante (praying figure), Bronze, Celt-Iberian, V - IV Century B.C. H. 7 cm W. 2.1 cm ex coll: Kelekian, New York

Earrings (2), Gold, Egyptian Ptolemaic Period, III - II Century B.C. Diameter 2 cm ex coll: Abemayor, New York

Bracteate, Gold Repousse Technique, Scythian ?, VII - VI Century B.C. H. 5 cm W. 7 cm ex coll: Kelekian, New York

Googling these terms has helped somewhat, but I'm not too sure of their museum-value...if they'd be unwanted or anything. I know sort of who Kelekian is. The bracteate is neat...a shepherd fending a lion off an ibex, it seems.

Any help or places to look for more information is appreciated.
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Old 10-15-2004, 06:15 PM
GorillaMan GorillaMan is offline
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Any decent museum will be able to give to a basic assessment of the items. Find a suitable place to contact (this seems a good start) and phone them and discuss the situation, and have the items handy to describe. And then, if they want to look at them, bring along everything relating to the items and their history - where you acquired them from, etc. If the items are outside of their usual remit (and in Utah I guess they will be!), then they should certainly be able to pass you onto suitable contacts.
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