The making of copies of ancient gold ornaments has been going on for some years, and is one of the most lucrative branches of the business. The most extraordinary prices are sometimes paid for these replicas in the full belief that they are genuine.

A gentleman who is deeply interested in the study of Egyptology was once approached by a native, who, after some conversation, hinted that he had some gold antiquities to sell. The interpreter, who was evidently “in the swim,” pretended to have the utmost difficulty in persuading the native that he might speak freely, assuring him that he was quite safe—the gentleman would not inform against him—and that he could with perfect confidence bring his spoils to be looked at. This at last he agreed to do.

Excitement grew, and at the hour the man appeared—a stolid, clownish, apparently ignorant fellah; he seemed the last one to be suspected of a clever fraud.

The articles were various figures wrought in gold, and after a protracted interview, a bargain was struck. £3000 was paid for them, and then they were brought in triumph to Cairo, where I saw them. They were submitted to expert after expert, and then the truth came out. They were forgeries. Part of the money paid was returned, but the remainder was lost.

Another case occurred recently. A man from the Delta went to a dealer in Cairo and said that one of the farmers in his district had found some gold things in a tomb while taking soil from the ground, and now he wanted to find a rich man to buy them, one who would keep his secret so that the Government should not punish him and take them from him. When the dealer agreed to go and see them, the man advised him to take £200 or £300 with him. The dealer cautiously said, “No, I shall take only £20.” It was arranged that he should go to his informant’s village, and that the finder of the jewels should be brought to him there.

Next day the dealer went to the village, and found that his informant was out, collecting rents for his land, and some time elapsed before he came back, carrying in his hands an inkpot and some papers to show how busy he had been. The dealer asked where the farmer was who had found the antiquities. The man replied, “I have sent for him, but he has not yet come.”

“Where does he live?” asked the dealer.

The man pointed to a collection of huts in the distance behind a ruin.

“Come, let us take donkeys and ride there,” said the dealer, “I cannot stay here all day.”

Donkeys were procured and they set off. On arrival, they found the farmer working his land. When he came in answer to their call he refused to admit that he had ever seen any gold antiquities, and vowed that he had none. When pressed, he swore by all the Prophets and their beards that he was innocent of finding anything; but, in an aside, he muttered that he thought the dealer was a member of the secret police, who had come to take all he had got.

Then the dealer swore to him by all the most sacred oaths that he was not a member of the police force, so the old man took courage, and produced one piece—a leaf of gold with two oxen engaged in a fight stamped upon it. The dealer asked if this was all. The farmer replied, “Well, you buy this, and when I know how you value it I will go and get you another.”

Then the dealer, doubting if the specimen was really genuine, asked the farmer if he had found it, or whether any one had given it to him to sell. The man swore by the divorce—the talak bi talata—that he had found the things himself, and had dug them up out of the ground.

The dealer thereupon bought some stamped leaves of gold to the value of £30, and the farmer told him to come again in two days and perhaps he would show him some more. Then the man who had lured the dealer there said, “Oh, I have seen in this man’s house a gold sword and a gold belt, and lots of coins, and if you can get five thousand pounds you can buy them from him.”

When the dealer got back to Cairo with his purchases, he showed them to an authority on the subject, who offered to buy them for £250, but the dealer refused, saying that he wished to wait until he could buy the rest of the find. Then the prospective purchaser said that, as he had not time to wait, he would ask a friend to come and buy for him.

The friend came and in the end bought the gold leaves for £250, and asked the dealer to go and get the rest of the things. Thinking that he was going to make a good season’s work, the dealer took £300 with him and went back to the place. This was, in itself, a risky proceeding, as he might have been murdered and the money stolen; needless to say, he did not sleep that night.

The intermediary entered into an agreement with the dealer that he would take no money for introducing him to the finder, but would accept a commission on the profits made when the articles were sold.

“I will send for the man to come,” he declared, “because people will see us going to his house, and they will become suspicious and inform the authorities, who will put the man in prison or punish him in some way. Stay here, my friend. It is better so. I will send for the farmer to come.”

“But when will he come?” asked the dealer.

“In the night, when it is dark,” replied the intermediary.

The dealer waited and waited, and between his fear of being killed and robbed, and his anxiety to get more things, he had no sleep. Each time the door opened—and it opened many times—he sat up and asked if the man had come.

The reply was always, “No, not yet.”

In the early morning the dealer became suspicious and said, “Well, I must go home now, I cannot wait any longer.”

The intermediary said, “Yes, you go home, and if the man brings anything I will come over to your shop and bring them with me.”

After two days he came alone, bringing a gold ring with a Greek head upon it, and asked the dealer for £10 in order to buy some more things from the farmer, who had grown suspicious and would not disclose what else he had. The dealer gave the money, and after two days the intermediary returned, this time with two gold coins, some more rings and stamped gold foil, and saying positively that they were from the same tomb.

So the dealer bought the coins, rings, and some of the other things for £80. He took them to an expert authority, who said, “This is excellent, for now we shall know from the date on the coins the age of the relics.”

A stamp in wax was taken, and sent at once to the museum.

“May I show this coin to a friend?” asked the expert. The dealer gladly gave permission, and it was taken to a collector of coins, who told them that that particular coin was never found in Egypt, and, most probably, it was not genuine.

Then the dealer said, “Well, if this coin is not real, then all the things which I have bought are frauds; let us examine all of them.”

This was done, and after three hours’ hard work with magnifying glasses, the expert came to the conclusion that the articles were not really genuine antiquities, but very clever frauds. Then the dealer returned the £250 to his patron who had bought the gold leaves. After this he took the things straight back to the intermediary, who now declined all responsibility, saying, “You bought from the farmer, who is an ignorant man and knows nothing.”

The assistance of the police was invoked, and the head of the village paid £20 to the dealer, intending to reimburse himself from the proceeds of the farmer’s crops.

In the meantime, the dealer was not idle. He found out that a Jewish goldsmith in Cairo had prepared some plain gold leaves and had sent them over to Athens to be stamped. He had then sold them to the intermediary, and this man had passed them on to the fellah, and between them they had made this plan. They buried the things in the ground, and after a time the fellah dug them up, thus being able to swear by the “triple divorce” that he had taken them out of the ground. Then the intermediary had looked about him for a promising victim, and selected the dealer, who lost over the transaction some £60. Some time later, the forgeries were again sold to a well-known man for £30, and were again detected. This time the money in full was returned, and the forgeries were melted down.

One night, thirteen years ago, while I was strolling about in the moonlight after dinner, an Arab came up, and after some conversation slipped a small parcel into my hand, made a sign of silence, and went away. I knew the man, so, after a few minutes, I made an excuse and went indoors to look at the parcel, which was rather heavy and of a peculiar shape. After undoing the knotted ends of a piece of native cloth, there came into view a magnificent pair of gold bracelets made in the form of snakes, with three rings of heavy gold. The make was antique and the design splendid. I was young at the game then, and the beauty of the bracelets made them attractive. I hesitated for a time, and the more I hesitated the less I liked the idea of buying them. I could not be sure that they were real, and an expert opinion could not, under the circumstances, be got, to say nothing of the questionable morality of buying them and thereby encouraging riflers of tombs and stealers of important links between the present and ancient days. For who can say what valuable pieces of evidence may not, in this way, be lost?

I wrapped them up again in their dirty cloth and went out into the moonlight once more. Soon the Arab sidled up to me, and I put the parcel back into his hand.

“You will buy them?” he queried.

“What is your price?” I asked.

“Thirty pounds,” he replied. “They are worth a hundred and fifty.”

I told him it was a lot of money. He shrugged his shoulders, and held up his hands as if to show me that he was positively giving them to me. Then I definitely declined to buy them.

And now, after thirteen years have passed, I hear that they were afterwards sold for the price of the gold plus a quarter for the antique design. Old Egyptian gold is 24 carat, and an English sovereign is 18 carat, so that the price came out at about the price of ordinary gold. And one of those implicated in the transaction has since admitted to me that the bracelets were forgeries.

Last year I was shown by a collector a small gold scarab. It was quite hollow and made of very thin gold, and it had the appearance of having been pressed out in a mould. I was asked to give an opinion on it, but was able to escape without committing myself. My opinion was that the scarab was not genuine, but as it was the first example of its kind that I had seen, I did not care to express too definite an opinion upon the subject. This year I have seen other gold ornaments bought at the same place, and I have no hesitation in saying that the scarab was an exceedingly well-made copy of a genuine one.

PLATE II.

In Plate II are shown some interesting forged gold antiques. The necklace (No. 2) was bought by a lady in Algiers. It was represented to have been brought from Egypt, and was said to be composed of Egyptian scarabs made of precious stones and mounted in gold filigree work. The price paid for it was £16. Examination showed that the scarabs were composed of coloured glass, very badly cut, and the setting was merely silver gilt. The real value was under ten shillings.

No. 1 shows a combination necklace composed of genuine old carnelian beads and spurious gold bottles. This was a fashionable form of necklace in the ancient days, and the present specimen is extremely well calculated to take in the unwary. The price asked for it was £18. The man had two others of a somewhat different design with him. The prices were £12 and £6 respectively. In each case the beads were old, and the gold had been covered with a kind of lacquer which gave it the appearance of age. So clever were the gold imitations that at first I really thought that they were real, and proceeded to bargain for them. We did not agree upon a price for the two largest necklaces, but I bought the smaller one (No. 4) for twelve shillings.

No. 3 is a bracelet made up of imitation scarabs set in real gold of a low carat.

The seller also showed me a heavy gold ring, fashioned like the ring of Akhnaton, but lacking an inscription on the face of it. For this he asked £8, but I remembered a tale told me by an excavator to the effect that in December of 1900 a man of Qus took a gold ring to his camp at Derr-el-Ballas. On the face was the name of an eighteenth-dynasty queen. Careful examination showed that the ring was a forgery. Four months later the excavator saw the same ring in the shop of a dealer in Luxor, who had paid £5 for it, and this made me cautious. The following day the man returned with a friend, and again we proceeded to bargain for the two large necklaces. Hamid Ibrahim, to whom I am much indebted for his assistance, and in whose shop the transaction was taking place, was suspicious and uneasy. Time after time he examined the necklaces with a powerful magnifying glass. The men watched him calmly, never showing by the quiver of an eyelid that they minded his examining them as much as he liked. We had narrowed the transaction down until now there was little separating us in price, when again Ibrahim took up the bottle necklace, and began looking at it with his glass. Suddenly he made a quick movement which I understood at once, and then he laid the necklace down. Silently he handed me the glass, and pointed out a bottle. I took up the necklace, and there on the bottle he had indicated, was a very fine line where the gold had been folded over. I handed the necklace back to Ibrahim, who took a needle and ran it along underneath the edge of the gold, which he thus turned back. Then we saw that it was no thicker than a sheet of thin paper, while the bottles had been cast in plaster of Paris, and the gold foil very cleverly folded over them. I did not buy the necklaces, but I obtained the loan of one of them (No. 2, Plate II).

As I have said, the men made no objection to our examination of the bottles. They looked us frankly in the face; they would have cheated us if they could, but they had failed. They did not consider that they were in any way to blame for their attempt. They told us frankly, after we had found them out, that the gold forgeries were all made by one man, who was such a wonderful artist that he had been offered a high rate of pay to go to Europe to work there, but that he had refused. It is certain that more will be heard of this man’s work, for, said my informant, “There is no one in the world so clever as he is in making gold imitations.”

I have purposely refrained from describing the gold forgeries made and sold by Europeans in Egypt, preferring to keep entirely to the Egyptians and their work.