371, Lot: 1333. Estimate $750. Sold for $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Bronze incense altar with lid. Roman Egypt, 1st-2nd centuries AD. Cast altar with square base, hollow shaft, and triangular decorations between long corner horns terminating in spheres (10.2cm). The tall lid (11.cm) is divided in three registers and has a globular tip. Green patinas. Corner of altar and portion of lid broken. Very rare altar type, and seemingly the only known with its original lid.

This altar is similar to six other examples discussed by Professor Torlief Elgvin (“A rare incense altar raises burning questions,” Biblical Archaeology Review 5, vol. 28, 2002, p. 35; four are illustrated on p. 37, a fifth on p. 35). Three of the other six were excavated in the Levant, one was found in the sea. Professor Elgvin believes that one in a private collection (Schøyen) may have come from the Qumran period III, after the destruction of the Second Temple, and belonged to either Jewish refugees from Jerusalem or Nabataeans. The three excavated examples can be dated to the 1st-2nd centuries AD. For a discussion of the type, which was common both to Egypt and the Near East, see J.D. Cooney, Late Egyptian and Coptic Art (Brooklyn Museum, 1943), pp. 9 and 19.