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Thought the guy in Cairo was scamming me over a $30 scarab, then the museum emailed back
Bought a small green stone scarab at a stall near Khan el-Khalili in Cairo 4 months ago for $30, mostly because the seller would not take no for an answer. I told my wife it was tourist junk and tossed it in a drawer. On a hunch I sent photos to the Egyptian Museum's antiquities email, fully expecting silence. Two weeks later a registrar replied and said the carving style and drill marks point to the Late Period, so I mailed it in for review. Now I am waiting on their verdict and wondering if I should have handled it with gloves from day one. Has anyone here ever mailed a chance find to a museum and actually gotten an answer back?
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barbarahill1mo ago
That line about tossing it in a drawer got me, because I would have done the exact same thing after telling my spouse it was junk. It is a real gut drop when something you blew off turns out to maybe be the real deal, and the glove worry is normal but I would not beat yourself up over it now. Even if the museum says it is just a modern copy, you still did right by sending it in, so try to enjoy the wait instead of dreading it.
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