Ancient & Classical Artifacts

Dig deep enough, anywhere, and the ground starts handing things back. Ancient and classical artifacts reach from China to the Americas, West Africa and the Mediterranean. Neolithic Chinese li tripod vessels and pottery of the Xiajiadian culture of northeast China sit near Song-era trade ceramics raised from Java Sea wrecks, preserved for centuries by high-fired glazes. Terra cotta heads of the Koma of northern Ghana, made between roughly the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, share space with Pre-Columbian figures and vessels of the Colima and Nayarit of West Mexico, the Chancay, Chimu and Nazca of Peru, the Maya, the Tairona of Colombia and Coclé of Panama.

Roman glass from the eastern Mediterranean, early Iranian ceramics, Chinese gongshi scholar’s rocks. Terra cotta, stoneware, stone and glass hold the marks of burial: earth in the crevices, iridescence, root etching. One excavated figure on a walnut plinth in a study gives a room a long reach back in time.