Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 152 Fakes
Because the sketching exercise book had already been obtained, Liang En was not in a hurry to use the card to check the origin of the sketching exercise book, but continued to pay attention to the auction on the field.

Soon, all the warm-up items found their new owners, and the next ones will be the protagonists of today's auction.

The Tiffany necklace that Liang En saw before was the first to go up for auction. The atmosphere on the court was ignited in an instant, and the price also rose steadily. Finally, it was sold at a price of 65 US dollars.

As each item was put on the auction table to run the auction, except for a few items that were sold at the reserve price, the rest of the items were sold at a price that everyone was satisfied with.

"The next item to be auctioned comes from ancient Egypt and also from England. It used to be the coffin of a princess, but it left Egypt and came to England more than 200 years ago, and it has been preserved until today."

Just as the auctioneer was loudly introducing the next auction item, two crew members carefully pushed a painted Egyptian wooden coffin out from the side of the room with a trolley, and placed it on the table.

"Next, everyone can come to the stage to watch this lot for 5 minutes, and then continue our auction. By the way, the reserve price of this ancient Egyptian painted wooden coffin is 40 US dollars."

In fact, compared with the ancient Egyptian bronze sickle sword that was sold for $70 before, this Egyptian wooden coffin is obviously more valuable in history.It's a pity that this thing is too out of the way, so it can't be called a price.

After all, whether in the East or the West, things related to death are always taboo.So unless it is a national treasure like Tutankhamen's golden coffin, the price will definitely be quite different.

Soon, Liang En accompanied Bruce to stand beside the coffin, and then began to check the coffin up and down.

The first time he started to check, Liang En observed the hieroglyphs written on the inner lid of the coffin.Because text often contains the most important information.

Inside the inner lid of the coffin is densely packed with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the translation is part of the famous ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead".

For the ancient Egyptians, the "Book of the Dead" was an important existence that could help them obtain eternal life after death, because only under the guidance of the "Book of the Dead" can the souls of the dead be redeemed.

Therefore, the ancient Egyptians would write the contents of the "Book of the Dead" on every inch of the dead, including but not limited to the papyrus they carried with them, on the amulets, on the wall of the tomb or on the coffin.

However, when he turned to the side of the coffin after checking the common contents on the inside of the coffin lid, Liang En found that there was something wrong with the text appearing on the side.

Because he found that the inscription on the side of the coffin was just the name of the ancient Egyptians, but under normal circumstances, they would engrave all the titles of the deceased before the name, and only civilians with no status would engrave only one name .

More importantly, from the shape of the coffin, it can be inferred that the coffin should belong to a priestess, but the name carved on the side of the coffin is not only without any title, but also a man's name.

But unexpectedly, there is a carbon 14 identification certificate next to the coffin, which clearly shows that the coffin did come from the era of the 17th Dynasty of ancient Egypt.

After discovering two pieces of contradictory evidence, Liang En fell into thinking. In the end, he chose to use a [Appraisal (N)] to figure out what it was.

Because he was really curious about what was behind this strange-looking painted wooden coffin, not to mention that he didn't want any problems with himself in this commission.

[Since Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in the 19th century, Europe once again set off a frenzy for Egypt. Unlike before, Europeans only pursued mummies that had certain magical medicinal effects in legends. This time, Europeans pursued everything related to Egypt. 】

【As a result, everything in Egypt immediately became expensive throughout Europe. Under such circumstances, the counterfeiting of cultural relics became a natural thing. 】

[The simplest counterfeiting is fakes from beginning to end, but soon as the quality of personnel engaged in this industry improves, various high-end fakes also appear on the market. 】

[For example, this Egyptian painted wooden coffin is one of the top fakes. The counterfeiters used some ancient wood to make the main body of the coffin, and at the same time decorated it with the same ancient raw materials, so they were able to fool those experts. . 】

"It turns out that this thing is a high-end fake!" Looking at the words that appeared in front of him, Liang En suddenly opened his eyes wide.

To be honest, it is normal for him to be deceived in this respect. After all, he is an expert in ancient Egyptian characters, not an expert in cultural relics, so it is normal to show timidity when facing such high-end fakes.

As for why the previous appraisers didn't see it, the reason is also very simple. On the one hand, after this item was collected very early, later generations would subconsciously think it was real.

On the other hand, those counterfeiters used a large amount of ancient materials in order to be as authentic as possible, so it is naturally impossible for those who conduct carbon 14 inspections through sampling and analysis to check out any problems.

It's just that the counterfeiters may not have thought that those ancient Egyptian characters that looked like heavenly scripts could be deciphered, so Liang En saw the flaw today.

"How about this thing." After the inspection time was over, Bruce asked Liang En in a low voice after sitting back in his seat, "Is it worth my money?"

"Personally, let's forget it, because this painted wooden coffin—" After hearing Bruce's question, Liang En immediately said what he could say out of the suspicious points he had just observed.

"Are you sure?" After hearing Liang En's quick explanation, Bruce suddenly became nervous, and then asked in a low voice. "This kind of thing is not a joke."

"I will never joke about it." Liang En said seriously. "Unless my previous deciphering of ancient Egyptian was all wrong."

"If that's the case, I think we're going to make a splash." Bruce smiled, then stood up and shouted to the auctioneer who was about to start the auction. "Stop the auction, this Egyptian painted coffin is fake."

"Are you sure, Mr. Bruce?" As soon as Bruce's voice fell, Mr. Scudder, the organizer of the auction, also stood up and looked at him and asked.

"I think you know the rules of our auction, so I hope you can come up with reasonable evidence, otherwise, I can only ban you from participating in the auction on this boat."

"I discovered this problem." Liang En also raised his hand at this time and said, "Because I found that the words on this coffin and the shape of the coffin can't match at all—"

In the next 5 minutes, Liang En spoke out the flaws he found in the coffin in short and common language.

"—That's how things are. I think the ancient Egyptian text wasn't deciphered when the fraud was made, so the other party made a mistake when copying it according to a certain model, and I happened to be able to translate the ancient Egyptian text."

"So that's the case." Mr. Scudder nodded, and then looked at a slightly bald middle-aged man sitting below. "Sorry, Mr. Locke, I think the thing you sent for auction this time should be a fake."

(End of this chapter)