The mystery of ‘The Starving of Saqqara’
The Starving of Saqqara sculpture. Photo: Concordia University
The mystery of ‘The Starving of Saqqara’
Print
Share this story123
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 | Featured, News
Grotesque or beautiful? – Rare antiquity or outright fake? – For more than a decade Concordia University has investigated the origins of a mysterious sculpture. Once part of the Diniacopoulos Collection of Mediterranean antiquities, it has been in the university’s possession since 1999.
The Starving of Saqqara. Photo: Concordia University
The 67-centimetre-high limestone work, with traces of pigments, depicts two **** seated figures with large heads. It also features inscriptions in an unidentified language.
To learn more about the artwork, Concordia’s Director of Special Projects and Cultural Affairs, Clarence Epstein, has consulted experts from Cambridge University, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Israel Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum.
So far, no authority has been able to confirm the sculpture’s pedigree.
“One specialist commented that if it can be proven to date to the period when the Jews were exiled from Egypt, it could be one of the rarest finds of its kind,” says Epstein. “Another archaeologist suggested the statue was either from a predynastic tomb or was an outright fake.”
Swiss art historian Jean-Jacques Fiechter posits: “An experienced collector and connoisseur, such as Vincent Diniacopoulos, would not have bought this piece, nor shipped it at great cost to Canada, had it not been considered authentic.”
Vincent and Olga Diniacopoulos, who amassed a collection now dispersed in museums and private collections the world over, brought the work to Canada. Identified as The Starving of Saqqara, the sculpture was exhibited in the 1950s at their family-owned Galerie Ars Classica on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal. The name Saqqara refers to the vast burial ground in the ancient capital of Memphis in Egypt. However, how this region relates to the work or how it received the name remains part of the mystery.