Live Appreciation, Congratulations to Brother

Chapter 288: Pharaoh’s home was stolen?
"Are you sure it's a total of five hundred pieces?" Zhang Yang questioned this statement.

You must know that the ancient Egyptian civilization did not have currency, so there was no case of using coins to top up.

If the five hundred pieces were all individually displayed, they would have caught up with the number of cultural relics loaned to the Yangcheng Museum for two seaside exhibitions.

"Of course I'm sure." Boss Mo smiled and replied: "I have purchased these cultural relics in overseas cultural relics markets over the years, and I have spent a lot of time and energy on them."

"Now I have to find a way to recoup my previous investment."

The people present were stunned when they heard this, it was such a refreshing and refined reason.

Zhang Yang was originally thinking about getting a bunch of fakes and holding a joint exhibition with the museum. This woman was really whimsical.

But from what she said, it seemed like the things on display were all genuine?
"Boss Mo, are you going to sell your collection of real antiques?"

"of course not."

Boss Mo shook his head and explained:

"You may not look at the large number of treasures in this batch, but in fact, in China, the types of Egyptian cultural relics that collectors can accept are very limited, and they are nothing more than mummies, pyramids, sphinxes and other world-famous things."

"Of course these are the ones that can be sold in bulk in the end."

"Then I understand."

Zhang Yang said with sudden realization. He and Captain Liu looked at each other, their eyes conveying inquiry:
How about it, are you interested?
Captain Liu answered with action. He looked at the woman opposite with a sincere face:
"Boss, can you show us the collection you have prepared?"

"Director, who is this?"

"Sorry, I forgot to introduce you. This Mr. Liu is an expert on African culture in our museum."

"African culture? Does the Hailin Museum also conduct research in this area?"

Boss Mo looked at Captain Liu in surprise.

Judging from his dark complexion, fierce eyes, and weather-beaten appearance, he does have an African look to him.

"Of course. Mr. Liu originally wanted to stop by your art gallery to study today."

"In fact, not only Mr. Liu, I also have a lot of research on African culture."

Zhang Yang said whatever he thought of, but since the other party was a liar who cheated money without conscience, he felt no psychological pressure at all when he made up the story.

Seeing that the woman was still hesitating, he took a step further:
"Lending an exhibition is not like selling materials. Your collection will eventually be displayed in public. If there are problems with the items, it will definitely affect the reputation of our museum."

"So before formal cooperation, I must confirm it first. You should understand, right?"

"I can understand." Boss Mo nodded.

Her expression was a little tangled, as if she was making a difficult decision.

"Otherwise, I will take a few people to the store's warehouse first. Although there is only a part of the collection, it is enough to represent the level of my batch of things."

"When the three experts see the real thing, they will believe that what I am telling is the truth."

"Please."

……

Zhang Yang and three others followed Boss Mo in the elevator to the parking lot on the underground floor and came behind two large box trucks.

The woman told everyone that these two cars were the temporary storage of her art museum.

Some of her collection of Egyptian antiques were in the carriage.

This is the first time Zhang Yang has seen such a unique warehouse.

Especially the two large trucks, both with out-of-town license plates, give people a strong feeling of "selling cultural relics".

When Boss Mo opened the back door of the car, Zhang Yang took a deep breath when he saw the car was filled with antiques.

He still underestimated the other party’s collection level!

If all the goods on the truck are genuine, then this must be the truck of an Egyptian moving company, secretly evacuating a pharaoh's home!
"I never considered that this warehouse would be put on display one day, so I only left a single aisle for unloading."

Boss Mo pointed to the deep and long passage in the middle of the carriage, which seemed to lead to the mysterious ancient Egyptian civilization.

"Among you three, who will go take a look first?"

"Let me do it."

Zhang Yang walked in first without hesitation.

At the entrance to the passage, two mummy boxes stand.

Zhang Yang felt that there was nothing interesting to see, because the paintings on it had almost fallen off.

Although they look like authentic products from ancient Egypt, just like the pottery figurines of the Han Dynasty, they cannot make modern people feel "beautiful" antiques. Even if they are thousands of years old, they do not have high economic value.

However, Zhang Yang just took a step forward in the passage and was immediately attracted by several things placed next to the mummy box.

They were several oval jars that looked like sauerkraut jars.

The material of the jar is very strange, a bit like stone. Under the illumination of white light, it reflects yellow-white light.

There are no patterns on the body of the jar, but the top of the jar is engraved with a human head wearing a pharaoh's turban.

Different jars have different figures carved on the top.

"Isn't this a jar?"

Zhang Yang vaguely remembered that he had seen this thing in some popular science mummy videos.

"Name: (Emset) Canopic Jar"

"Material: Alabaster"

"Production time: 625 BC"

"Details: Canopic jars contain internal organs removed from corpses during the mummification process. These jars usually come in sets of four, containing the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines.

The statue carved on this jar belongs to Emshet, the son of Horus and the protector of the liver. It is usually placed in the south of the tomb. "

Looking at the item information, Zhang Yang immediately retracted his hand that reached out to the jar.

Sure enough, the things placed together with the mummy box were all from the underworld.

Zhang Yang counted the number of canopic jars, eight.

Judging from the age information, there are exactly two groups.

In addition to Emshet, who protects the liver, each group also has Habi (lungs), Domtef (stomach) and Kebshanaf (intestines).

They are placed in the four directions of the east, south, west and north of the tomb.

This approach is somewhat like Feng Shui.

"Two groups, complete sets of burial objects..."

Zhang Yang suddenly thought of something. He turned around and looked at the two wooden boxes containing mummies.

625 BC, 594 BC.

The age of the two sets of Canopic jars is consistent.

That’s two whole sets!

Is it spread so completely?

Zhang Yang continued to observe, and he noticed that these jars were sealed. What they looked like when they were dug out might be what they look like now.

What about the wooden coffin containing the mummy of the tomb owner?

Normal wooden coffins will use asphalt materials to seal the gaps. However, considering the "medicinal value" of the mummies themselves, most of the wooden coffins circulating on the market have no contents.

And because the ancient Egyptians sometimes buried empty boxes to deceive people, they would sell the mummies and wooden coffins separately after opening the boxes. The market price was even higher than that of the complete wooden coffin.But these two wooden coffins seem to be complete?
With a complete wooden coffin and a set of Canopic jars, this is already a complete ancient Egyptian tomb.

Zhang Yang was suddenly full of expectations for what he would see next.

Because according to his experience, these two sets of things were most likely unearthed in recent years, and they would not be from formal channels.

……

Continue to go inside.

Sure enough, there are many good things.

What first aroused Zhang Yang's interest were two cat mummies.

The overall shape is similar to that of a human mummy, except that the human head is replaced by a cat head.

But even with this small cat head on the mummy, the ancient Egyptians still showed their artistic abilities.

In one of them, the cat head is realistic and looks a bit like a leopard;
The other was a complete cartoon image, so abstract that it was unrecognizable.

As the most fond of cats among all ancient civilizations, cat slaves abounded in ancient Egypt, so cat mummies are actually not too rare.

But now there are more cat slaves in society, and cat mummies are very suitable as living room decorations, so their market value is not lower than that of ordinary human mummies.

In addition to the cat mummies, there are also some bronze cat statues placed nearby.

There is a theory that these bronze cats are actually the ancient Egyptian version of tomb beasts.

Zhang Yang took a cursory look and found that most of them were antiques from the sixth to fourth centuries BC. The current market price is around [-].

This is very common in the auction market, that is, just take a look and there is no need to pay too much attention.

The treasure he is looking for is either hard to buy or has just been unearthed;

Or maybe the box in front of you is a typical burial object.

On the shelf in front of Zhang Yang, there was a square box with a glass cover lying flat.

This is considered a relatively good preservation condition in the entire carriage.

The inside of the box is divided into twelve small cabinets, and each cabinet contains amulets that are common in ancient Egyptian culture.

The most famous one is probably an ornament shaped like an eagle's head.

The decoration is simple but distinctive in style.

The appearance of the ornament is an eye-catching light blue, a bit like celadon, but much rougher than Chinese porcelain.

Due to wear and tear in some places, the gray quartz sand inside has been exposed.

This is the "Eye of Horus", one of the favorite amulets of the ancient Egyptians.

The piece in the box is the same ceramic product as Shaboti. It is a bit like the most primitive porcelain sculpture. The light blue layer on the outside is glaze.

Even if you don’t know the culture of ancient Egypt, you will see such things when you visit antique stalls.

Zhang Yang met him when he was in Panjiayuan. An uncle was selling this thing. The price quoted at that time was 300 yuan. He said it was worn by the Egyptian pharaoh.

That is of course false. Not to mention the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, even the current "Pharaoh" Salah wears more than this price.

The normal market price is around [-].

With the Eye of Horus, of course the most famous bug in ancient Egypt - the scarab beetle - is indispensable.

The scarabs at Pan Jiayuan's antique stall are like beans. The authentic material should be ruby ​​​​such as agate.

But what is contained in this box is a blue ceramic scarab made of the same material as the Eye of Horus.

And it is divided into three parts: left wing, insect body and right wing.

On the edge of each section, there are a considerable number of drilled holes.

It is reasonable to suspect that some kind of metal or fabric should have been penetrated into the holes and woven into a complete beetle form.

The head of the insect body has the same turban decoration as the pharaoh mummy.

This is enough to illustrate the lofty status of the scarab in ancient Egyptian culture.

The fact that the Dung Beetle is so praised is the only one in the entire Blue Star.

In addition to the two most famous amulets, there are also several similarly blue lion-head amulets, heart-shaped amulets, etc. in the box.

Their production times differed by less than 20 years.

The materials and craftsmanship are the same, and the age is so close. Zhang Yang has every reason to believe that these are the same batch of funerary objects.

The two older ones have serious signs of wear and tear, and were probably items that the deceased carried close to him during his lifetime.

This type of amulet was often placed in the mummy's wooden coffin when it was buried, next to the body wrapped in a shroud.

Although this shows that they are not the same set as the first two sets of mummies, because those two pieces have not been opened yet.

But they coincided with a piece of rag stored in a glass frame next to it.

"Name: Shroud Fragments"

"Material: linen"

"Production time: 232 BC"

"Detailed information: This is a fragment of the shroud on a mummy from the Ptolemaic Dynasty in ancient Egypt. It is made of fine linen. The patterns and text on it are part of the contents of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The yearning for transcendence and resurrection of the deceased is very precious.”

shroud?
Zhang Yang didn't expect that the gray, dirty rag in the frame had such an origin.

The shroud is generally the most inconspicuous thing in ancient tombs.

Grave robbers often just throw them away when they encounter them.

But once there are words and patterns on the shroud, it's completely different.

It is said that the shroud of Qianlong that Sun Dianying discarded casually was sold for a sky-high price of 1.3 million because of the scriptures on it.

In front of Zhang Yang, the contents of this mummy's shroud, the Book of the Dead, were no less impressive than Buddhist scriptures, or even more powerful.

In a sense, the Book of the Dead is the ancient Egyptian version of the afterlife curse.

It was first carved on the walls of royal tombs, and later written on papyrus as funerary objects;
Later, this custom spread from the royal family to the people.

Ordinary Egyptians probably felt that scriptures written on paper were not effective in "saving the souls of the dead", so they simply wrote them on the shroud and directly wrapped the deceased in scriptures.

Whether this effect is good or not can only be known by interviewing the deceased.

But the mummy shroud, which was originally mediocre, was suddenly upgraded to a higher level because of the scriptures.

Zhang Yang couldn't even estimate the value of this shroud.

Although it is only a small fragment and the pattern on it is not very clear, there is no doubt that such things are collection-level cultural relics around the world and will not be circulated in the market at all.

In other words, money can’t buy it.

What Zhang Yang is sure of is that Boss Mo's amulets and this shroud should all be made from the same ancient Egyptian's wool.

Recalling that she said before, these collections cost her a lot of money...

"Isn't this woman the white glove of an overseas tomb robbing group in China?"

"Or maybe these things are stolen cultural relics from Egypt, and she can't get rid of them. She wants to use the opportunity of museum exhibition in a foreign country to launder them all?"

Zhang Yang took a deep breath. Fortunately, Captain Liu was outside.

　Thanks to Linzi482 for the 200 coin reward!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)