Throughout most of the two millennia before the birth of Christ, the Phoenicians traded the length and breadth of the Mediterranean and beyond, and their influence and enterprise made them the major naval and trading power in the known world. They formed a conduit through which many nations exchanged not only raw materials but culture, language, art and knowledge. But how far did they trade? A strange association of items discovered in an archaeological excavation in Stewart Island (Rakiura) off the South Island of New Zealand may have shed new light on this age-old question.
The most prestigious grave, which dated from c1150BC, included a boat burial of a mature male who could have been a merchant trader - although most of the grave goods buried with him were in a poor state, they indicated a range of items unusual to the area and local culture. But there were two in particular that survived in remarkably fine condition and are possibly of monumental significance, for they may indicate a link between cultures at opposite ends of the earth.
The first item is a traditional Maori bone carving of a native owl, the Morepork, which by itself would not be an unusual item to be found in a grave of the period. But alongside it was an item which, according to all received opinion, should not have been there, for it appears to be an Ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life. Various theories have been put forward – that it is a representation of a type of local footwear, that it is a part broken off a larger item, even that it is a different interpretation of an owl and is in fact being displayed upside down - but these have been mostly dismissed, for there is no sign of breakage, and the piece is not stylistically typical of any artifacts that have so far been found within the Maori culture.
How did an Ankh and a Morepork come to be associated in the same grave? We will probably never know. When this intriguing pair of items came to the Cabinet of Curiosities, the clerk in charge of inventory was at a loss to know how they should be filed. Among the Egyptian ankhs perhaps? But after much thought he grouped them with a fine Victorian print of a Morepork and an egg of this beautiful little New Zealand owl, and it is this eclectic collection that we are proud to present for your interest, education and amusement.
The Ankh and the Morepork have been sculpted by Ian Mitchell, in the Somerset studios of Bernard Pearson, from an idea by Hilary Daniels.
Mixed media in a frame measuring 223mm by 275mm.