A head, a body, and two antiquities dealers...

Have you ever come across this Gudea statue? It's in the Louvre Abu Dhabi now, but until last year it had been in the Louvre Paris since 1953. HOW did get there though?

Let me tell you the story 🕵️‍♀️🔎👇
www.academia.edu/144706747/Ib...

Congratulations on the publication of The Library of Ancient Wisdom @lswisnom.bsky.social 🥳 currently reading & loving it.

Btw, I've not come across such a cover before 😍: the cuneiform signs are deeply impressed in the paper & almost all individually so - it's like stroking a tablet's surface ❤️

he seems to have left for Baghdad in May 1921, and begins to mention tablets from Larsa to his clients from October, so that's perhaps when the Louvre was offered tablets from this site

fun fact: Gejou met Gertrude Bell in Aug 1921 👇

the text comes from Larsa, modern Senkereh (Gejou sold tablets from this site b/w 1901 & 1925 at least)

i know Gejou was in Baghdad in 1922 b/c he wrote to the BM from this address 'Souk-el-Ghazel 21/180' -I was lucky to visit this street in June, see photo- to offer tablets from Larsa for sale

hey, folks, do you know who works on Umma tablets and history?

asking for a snake-dragon friend...

#assyriology #cuneiform #iraq

Finished Stolen Fragments by Roberta Mazza a few weeks ago, one of my fav books of the year.

So many mad-hatters in this case who reminded me of the curators & dealers I research who illicitly traded #cuneiform tablets in 19th & 20th centuries.

Also loved Mazza's writing style & fierce honesty ❤️

yes please, that's very kind! i'll DM you my email, much appreciated 🙏

actually, may i ask you also: is this papyrus' language coptic? the stone carving and papyrus are from the same photo albums, but i haven't been able to locate these either

i hope they resurface one day 😥 this Gudea head in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (26.289 👇) was used for years as a garden door holder by the former private owner

Fancy taking a look inside the photo albums of a collector, antiquities dealer, and smuggler for #provenanceresearchday?

Here's a peek inside the albums of Ibrahim Elias Gejou #Iraq #cuneiform lnkd.in/eSK4vbs7

which brings me to ask: have you seen these two ancient artworks anywhere?

help: does anybody recognise this script/language? #provenance

Ever wondered how people made a career out to selling artefacts smuggled from #Iraq👇🏼?

Here's a brief investigation of how the antiquities dealer I.E.Gejou became the beloved friend of many a #museum by selling them such artworks 😈
www.academia.edu/113240438/TH...

"I do not believe in these slanted eyes!" 🙄
this is what the BM curator of the Egyptian dept said to the seller when he refused to buy this supposed head of Akhenaten in 1927.

But the seller, I.E. Gejou, placed a photo of it in his albums of objects sold (no buyer's name).

Anybody recognise it?

1 year on & still tracking down the collections of I.E. Gejou in museums based on his photo albums. My 2 current investigations 🕵🏻‍♀️: two hippos from ancient Egypt, c. 600 BCE (Brooklyn M.), & a broken ivory comb from India, 1 AD (V&A)

Anyone knows these objects?
collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O25073/...

currently following the trail of the antiquities dealer Ibrahim Elias Gejou at the V&A, another museum to whom he sold 'a few' objects 🤓

I love that provenance research is turning me into a detective 🕵🏻‍♀️