These two marble Italian Carrera White Marble reliefs (second one of Iol Hyssar, facing right in the Ureaus, scripted in Ancient North Lybian).
These are claimed to be from the Crypt of Queen Kleopatra VII and the Sema of the Ptolemies. The script is in Numidian and these pieces are claimed to be made around 45 BC.

Are there any other instances of Egyptian tomb art work where the script is in Numidian? The measurements of the second piece are: Height, 23cm.; Length, 19.5cm.; Width, 5.6cm. Weight 4Kg. I've found no references to someone named Iol Hyssar in Egyptology.

My first reaction is that this is not authentic egytian art. It looks to be someone's attempt at duplicating the ancient egyptian style of art. I plan to look into this further. The website from which these pictures were taken looks like a doosy.

Actually, that website is just a discussion board which is debating the subject. The website that is selling these is at: This is where the guy makes all his claims. That second artifact is going for $2.5mil.

If you right click on the pics you posted and click properties it shows the web address from where the pics were originally taken from.

Can anyone get a check on whether that script is even Numidian?

I don't study the language but the third and fourth letters on the top tablet do not appear on my alphabet chart. The rest do, but those two do not.

Just a couple of points here:

a) why would Cleopatra VII have Numidian text in her tomb. Surely it would be in hieroglyphic or at a stretch in Greek. Numidian has no religious or secular use in mainstream Ptolomaic Egypt.
b) the tomb of Cleopatra has never been found, or at least has not been certainly identified. We think we know where it may be, but there is little or no proof to say that it is there or not.
c) looking at scenes from the Temple of Dendera, created not long before the fragment above supposedly were there is no correlation in the art forms. At Dendera and Edfu the Ptolomaic reliefs are identical to the Ramesside ones and the earlier ones too.
d) Why did it have to be Cleopatra VII? One would have thought the discovery of HER tomb would be huge, far greater than the discovery of Nefertiti (if you beleive that it was her and not another woman). Why wasn't this discovery well publicised?

I agree, Si-Amun. If Cleopatra's tomb had been found, even if it was robbed in ancient times and was empty, it would have been a big, big press releaase. It's not impossible that it has been found, but highly unlikely.

I was under the impression that the likelyhood is that Cleopatra's tomb had been destroyed and is now below sea-level. Possibly due to large scale earthquakes and the eventual widening of the Gulf of Alexandria.

There are seperate theories about this. One is that it was destroyed by earthquake, another is that it is now underneath sea level and another is that the remains are actually underneath modern day Alexandria. We do not have an idea as to where the actual tomb was precisely or how it looked. If the tomb had underground chambers (which i think is quite likely) then it is quite probable that there is still something out there to be seen. I am not sure if we ever will though, Alexandria is a big place and a search for one small (comparitively) tomb would be a mammoth task.

On the subject of underground chambers- what about KV5!

That really is something!

It is something in as much as it is quite unique BUT in the tomb itself there is little of any significance apart from the fact that we haven't found anything very similar to it yet. In all fairness it is a rather large tomb, without any major finds or even a full mummy for examination. A few shards of sarcophagus and a few ushabt hardly makes the tomb amazing in my opinion! i

This is taken from the Theban Mapping Project site:
KV 5 is located in the main wadi of the Valley of the Kings. The tomb may originally have been an Dynasty 18 tomb (consisting of chambers 1, 2, and part of 3) usurped by Rameses II as the burial place for several of his principal sons. Still under excavation, the tomb has so far revealed 121 corridors and chambers. Since the tomb appears to have several bilaterally symmetrical sections, it is likely that the number of chambers will increase to 150 or more in subsequent field seasons. KV 5 itself is the largest tomb in the Valley; pillared chamber 3 is the largest chamber of any tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

At least six royal sons are known to have been interred in KV 5. Since there are more than twenty representations of sons carved on its walls, there may have been that many sons interred in the tomb.

The tomb is decorated with scenes from the Opening of the Mouth ritual (pillared chamber 3) and representations of the king, princes and deities (chamber 1, chamber 2, gate 3, pillared chamber 3, corridor 7, chamber 8, gate 9, corridor 12).

Noteworthy features: The overall plan of this tomb is unusual: there is a change in the tomb's principal axis after chamber 3; several chambers lie beneath other chambers; two corridors extend toward the northwest beneath the entrance and the road in front of the tomb; the plan is unlike any other royal tomb. Pillared chamber 3 has more pillars (sixteen) than any other chamber in the Valley of the Kings. The sculpted Osiris figure in the recess at the end of corridor 7 is unique

Clearly, it is unique, compared to other tombs. There has not been many items found in the tomb, but the tomb itself is a major find.
Kent Weeks is amazed at the size! And he hasn't reached the end yet. This season, he is concentraiting on shoring up the many rooms that have been dug. Removing the detrius has strained the rooms to the point of collapse. He hopes to open it to public inspection soon.

Just stumbled upon this site and thought I might offer a little assistance.

First of all, ancient Egyptian, ancient Lybian and ancient Nubian culture shared architectural, religious and stylistic similarities. At times, the boarders between these ancient worlds were blurred and their cultures transfused. Most people are familiar with ancient Egyptian art and culture but are unable to recognize the subtle differences in Nubian or Libyan stylistic protocols.

The two tablets displayed in this thread are probably not ancient Egyptian in origin. They might have originated in Lybia as the text suggests. If an association with ancient Egyptian artifacts can be established, then it could be speculated that these two artifacts were gifted to Egyptian nobility by Lybian nobility sometime in the ancient past.

A more pressing question to answer with regards to these particular artifacts is that of age.

A small number of academics have examined these artifacts and concluded that they are old and probably authentic. Individuals who label these artifacts as fraud, have not bothered to examine them. They offer opinion only.

Both images shown on this tread were taken in the basement of the physics lab at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The person holding the artifacts was the director of the facility. His expertise is in the dating of ancient metal, and could offer no professional opinion as to the age or authenticity of the artifacts.

This discussion forum has ask who is Hyssar? Actually the name is spelled 'Kaisar, and refers to speculation that the image on these two artifacts is that of ˈgajjus ˈjuːlius ˈkaisar; or Julius Caesar as it's spelled in modern English.

The association with Queen Cleopatra VII is inferred due to this interpretation and also because other artifacts (associated with these artifacts) which refer to ancient Egypt, particularly Cleopatra VII and Cleopatra VIII.

These artifacts may or may not be authentic. The academic jury is still out. If authentic then one might assume the artifacts are valuable. The smaller artifact was at one time offered for sale (by it's owner at the time) for US$2.5 Million dollars. This was an attempt to demonstrate the value of the artifact if it could indeed be proved authentic. Many have pointed to this as evidence of fraud.

The larger artifact is obviously a fragment of an even larger original work. The writing can be seen running off the left edge. What script remains has been tentatively deciphered by Paul Kelly. His opinion is that this script represents acronyms and initialism often found in ancient stone inscriptions; much like ligatures seen in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Glagolitic, Serbian and other ancient script. This is simply a form of shorthand to make the job of stone carving or writing less rigorous. Such shortcuts where not only employed as a labor/space saving device, it was also considered clever.

These artifacts are available for academic examination. You may inquire about them at L478E@cox.net