kind of unique piece of antique. just want to know which era. made out of camel bone

hi guys. I just want to know which era does this belong to. It is made of cravings i think may be of middle east or African may be. But as far as i know the bone seems to made of a camel. supposed to be a camel leg bone.

 

Please always give bimensions. Can we get a photo showing bottom of foot, please?

 

ok thanks a lot at springfld.arsenal. i am at office. i will give you the details as soon as i go home. roughly it is around 2ft high

 

Is it light or heavy?? I don't think actual bone would be very heavy....It just doesn't look like bone to me.....but it's a picture....hard to tell........

 

I'm guessing not a real camel leg bone - almost looks like a concrete cast.

 

It is from Benin, West Africa. The figure halfway down is taken from a famous Benin/Ife bronze of Queen Idia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Head_of_Queen_Idia
The figures depicted around her are probably her soldiers or bodyguards.
It doesn't look very old and is probably a concrete cast as Rayo56 said.

 

it is a bone for sure. coz the corrosion or deterioration has started on the bone. and when ever the water is spilled its gets a very nasty smell. very difficult to keep it inside the house. thats one of the reason it is been kept on the outside of the house

 

I will upload some pics where the corrosion has taken place. beside i asked one of the local guys a way to preserve the bone getting more screwed up. He said itl cost me around $500 dollers. so Im thinking if its not really valuable its not worth doing it at all. But i am sure it is made of bone.

 

at aquitaine, Yes it is not that heavy as it should be if its made out of concrete. It is a bone for sure. concrete cant smell that bad when contacted with water.

 

Kindly post photo of the bottom surface, which should provide solid evidence of its boniness or absence thereof. A bad smell could be the result of smoking by the previous owners. Or having used it to stir asparagus and garlic soup.

 

ok guys here i took as many pics i can, covering all most all the surfaces. including the bottom. any idea which era this could be. or what is the possible value of this? or may be is this worth taking all the effort to preserve this

 

the rest of the images are here

 

Thanks for the detailed pictures. It is definitely from Benin.
When Benin art has a lot of figures of people and animals, it shows a person's status. The carvings on your piece (wonderful leopards!) allude to the court and kingship. Here is a short explanation of the symbolism on the site of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford:
https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/benin

As for the 'smelly' bone, best to keep it out of the rain and sunlight. Changes in moisture and temperature deteriorate bone. Here is advice on how to care for bone:
http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1439925170216
I have looked at photo's of different large skeletons, like elephant, giraffe, even whale, but they are all just as unlikely as camel. This is a mystery animal.
Cracks in bone are usually straight, they follow the length of the bone. There is a very irregular crack on this piece, could it be some kind of wood?

 

thanks for the piece of advise at Any_Jewelry, well im wondering about the bottom piece of the animal. it could be some kind of wood. but i dont know for sure. maybe. some kind of thing like Horse shoe. But the problem is Sri Lanka is tropical country. so the moisture is very much high. and some kind of fungus seems to grow in it too. By the way just for curiosity what could be the estimated value of this.

 

Further @any_jewelry, you thought of concluding that this piece belongs to the benin culture, is it only by the leapord carvings or was there more ?

 

As I wrote before, it is from Benin, West Africa. The figure halfway down is taken from a famous Benin/Ife bronze of Queen Idia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Head_of_Queen_Idia
The overall style is typically Benin, the queen's head, the warriors, etc.
I have no idea as to the value or age. You could contact a museum like the Pitt Rivers Museum I mentioned above, or an auction house specialised in African Art.

 

Great pictures, much better collection than we usually get here. In the 4th pic down you can clearly see how a carved piece of coarse-grained wood has been pieced into the bone to provide a flat-bottom base to display the bone. There are at least three iron nails visible in or near the wood to hold it into/onto the bone. The wood is further identified by the grain visible in the pic of the bottom surface, along with insect damage. All of the rest of the piece looks like bone to me, but I can't tell whether it is Giraffe, camel, or what.

 

The very bottom looks like wood to me. The horizontal crack there shows where it is joined to the rest. Otherwise, this does look like it could be bone. If it were mine, I would place it in a large bag and treat it for insects. After that, I would treat it with a fungicide. Once treated, I would make sure it is completely dry and give it a coat of paste wax. At that point, I would sell it since it is ugly as sin.....

 

Thanks guys. il check on the matter. The thing is in Sri Lanka there is no much market for antiques. Even though we have a history that dates back to 100 to 150BC. Lot of the antique matter is looted. and the rest of valuable artifacts are taken to europe. there is no much technology regarding preservation methods. that is one of the reasons, that professional preservation methods are highly expensive. one of the most exclusive piece of work in Sri Lanka is Sigiriya.

 

By the way Any_jewelry. thanks for the suggestions. Any of you guys have any idea of any good auction places for African artifacts such as this?