Often times, the public and even some museum professionals and protection officers find it difficult to identify and differentiate between real antiquity and contemporary works of art. This challenge can be solved by adopting certain simple techniques.
First and foremost, antiquity is defined as any object made before 1918, and used for historical, scientific, and artistic purposes, and has been made for the purpose of any traditional interest.
Antiquity are made from several materials such as clay, wood, iron, bronze, brass, etc. When antiquity cannot by properly identified, it cannot be differentiated from contemporary art works when it is stolen.
The following techniques can be used when identifying museum antiquity.
By weighing: They are usually due to dryness. By scratching: The spot are usually the same in look after scratching.
By smelling: They smell unique due to old age than fresh ones. By use of electric-Machine to determine their age.
They are expected to be very dry due to old age and have unique characteristic depending of their origin, location, community, that is, their originality and provenance.
In conclusion, the knowledge of how to identify museum antiquity from modern works of arts is indispensable, because many of our stolen objects could be identified and recovered by museum staff and the public which will protect our cultural heritage.
Adamu Bashayi,
Chief Antiquities Protection Officer,
National Museum, Kaduna