Scientists have discovered that ancient Egyptian figurines excavated in Scotland 70 years ago were brought there by a young lord in the 19th century. This was reported by Live Science.
Melville House, a Scottish estate in Fife, housed soldiers during the Second World War and later served as a boarding school. In 1952, a student who was forced to dig up potatoes as punishment discovered an ancient Egyptian statue in the ground. After this, teachers and students discovered many more similar artifacts, but no one knew how they got there.
Artifacts discovered at Melville House included a 4,000-year-old head statue carved from red sandstone, as well as various bronze and ceramic figurines dating to between 1069 and 30 BC. The finds include a bronze Apis bull figurine, a ceramic figurine depicting the goddess Isis breastfeeding her son Horus, and a ceramic tablet with the eye of Horus.
Previous attempts to determine the origin of these objects were inconclusive, but researchers now believe they were brought here by Lord Balgonie Alexander Leslie-Melville, the young heir of the House of Melville, who traveled to Egypt in 1856. He may have acquired the collection during his travels, as consuls and antique dealers frequently sold antiquities to foreigners during this period. Alexander’s heirs probably took the belongings to the annex, which was later demolished, and forgot about them.
Previously in Tanzania discovered strange images of people with huge heads.