For me it's too late ... I've bought my artifacts more than one year ago ...
I didn't know that
fakes of artifacts were so easily made and sold on
Ebay ...
It appears in ancientartifacts yahoogroup that my snowman is probably genuine, but perhaps not Chypriot, but from
Syria.
"Just to clarify...
The snowman technique was used to form the majority of Cypriot
terracotta figures, but it's not a technique exclusive to
Cyprus. The
idea is that you start by making a simple tubular or cone-shaped body,
and then subsequently add all the details by applying clay strips,
tubes, and blobs to the basic core body. (If you've ever built a real
snowman, it's the same idea -- you make the core body, then add all
the details by sticking on a
face, arms, hat, etc.)
Generally, figures made from this technique are pretty crude, and the
detailing is commonly done by hand. However, there are
plenty of
snowman figures from Cypriot and elsewhere that have mold-made pieces,
generally faces. As long as the
head is an applique added to the
pre-made body, it's
still technically a snowman. However, this
Eftisexample looks to have some non-applique details running down the front
of the chest, and the thickness of the neck suggests that it isn't an
applique. (You can generally look at an
average snowman figure and see
evidence in the
fabric of the clay where arms,
head, etc were added.)
Based on the photo, I wouldn't categorize this as a snowman.
As for origin, the loss to the arms makes it impossible to say
anything conclusively. Cypriot is possible, but from a sheer
probability perspective, Iron Age
Syria is probably your best guess
for this
style of figure. In terms of authenticity, it's always a crap
shot with
Eftis. One aspect of the figure that I don't like is the
dirt layer that starts mid-torso. This is frequently used to hide
repairs or sloppy combinations of fragments to form "Franken-figures."
However, other than the dirt, there are no major
red flags here -- you
might have gotten lucky on this one. Jason Dahling"
I was lucky ... But my bangle is probably a
fake ...
Eftis is a thief ! He should go in jail !
His artifacts may often be authentic, but most of the time they have been totally restored. I can't find the link, but on a website, they showed the before/after shots of one of EFTIS's Greek hoplite helmets. Shocking, to say at the very least.
--Peter