Dedicatory Stele of Fayšat

A calcite-alabaster funerary stele carved in high relief, featuring the bust of a woman surrounded by a projecting border on all sides. The figure emerges from a semi-circle around her midriff, appearing from the torso upwards. Two subtly modelled breasts make clear the gender of the figure. The true left arm is folded over the centre of the chest and holds some ears of grain, which may suggest fertility, while the right hand is raised to the side, with palm facing forwards in a gesture of veneration and adoration. Each of the wrists is adorned with bracelets. A broad neck sits between the rounded shoulders, with the head carved in even deeper relief and projecting forwards to meet the lower edge of the top border. The facial features are incised in detail, with full cheeks, small yet full lips, and large expressive almond-shaped eyes below slender eyebrows. The pupils would originally have been inlaid with precious materials. The top border is adorned with nine frontally oriented ibex heads set between two false windows of concentric recessed rectangles. The lower border is inscribed with nine letters in Qatabanian, reading from right to left: Fys2t Nḍḥn (“Fayšat [of the family of] Nadhān”). This identifies the deceased woman honoured and represented by the stele as Fayšat; as it is carved from a single block of creamy yellow calcite-alabaster with a roughly hewn reverse, this suggests it would have originally been positioned against the wall of her tomb. The family name Nadhān is recorded on other stelae found at Dayd bin’Aqīl, the necropolis of the Qatabanian capital of Timna.

This stele forms part of a group of funerary monuments, of which around thirty exist today (both fragmentary and intact). Based on epigraphic and palaeographic evidence, these stelae were all carved between 100 BC and 100 AD. Timna served as an important hub of the Incense Route, the camel caravan that transported incense from Arabia and India to ports on the Mediterranean Sea. Roman author and philosopher Pliny the Elder (23/24-79 AD) described Timna as a busy city with around 65 temples. Excavations in 1950 and 1951 by Wendell Phillips and his team unearthed several sites in the city, including the South Gate, private residences, a structure identified as a temple complex, and the necropolis. The alabaster heads and stelae were found in the vicinity of the necropolis, known as Ḥayd ibn ‘Aqīl. A further head was discovered in 1962 by a British officer stationed in Aden. The finds are all roughly carved on the reverse and often squared off at the top and back, suggesting that they were designed to be placed within niches in a shrine; several of the sculptures were found together within the antechamber of a crypt.

The boundaries of Ancient South Arabia fall within modern Yemen, parts of Oman, and Saudi Arabia. South Arabia was famous in the ancient world as the main producer of incense and perfume. Due to its ritualistic and traditional uses, there was great demand for incense in the ancient cities of Greece, Rome, Byzantium and Persia. Enormous caravans made up of hundreds of camels snaked through the desert carrying this precious commodity, along with other goods brought to the ports of the South from India and East Africa. The gold the caravans returned with made the Southern tribes of the peninsular very wealthy. Classical writers described the region as ‘Arabia Felix’ (Fortunate Arabia), due to its fertile lands. In the first century BC, South Arabia included five kingdoms: Saba, Qataban, Ma’in, Awsan and Hadramawt. Saba (referred to in the Bible as Sheba) was the oldest and most important of these kingdoms. Timna, the capital of the kingdom of Qataban, was a key hub in the Incense Route. The profusion of inscriptions that have been discovered in the area suggests the Qatabanians were a highly literate society.

Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, May-October 1960. Birmingham City Art Gallery and Museum, 1960-1970.
In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 22 February-8 June 1997, no. 5. 

Egyptian, Western Asiatic, Irish Bronze Age, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine Antiquities, Islamic Pottery and Metalwork, Sotheby’s, London, 13 July 1970, Lot 16, pp. 12-13.
In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 22 February-8 June 1997, exhibition catalogue, no. 5, pp. 1-2, 9.
Alessandra Avanzini, Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions I-III: Qatabanic, marginal Qatabanic, Awsanite inscriptions (Pisa, c2004), p. 328, CSAI I, 270. Alessandra Avanzini, ‘An introduction to their history’, in Art and Technique in Yemen: The Bronzes from the Museum of Baynun, La Limonaia, Pisa, 27 May-10 June 2009, p. 49, fig. 33.
Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 29 November 2017, Lot 73, pp. 94-95.
Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions, CSAI I 270: https://dasi.cnr.it/index.php?id=dasi_prj_obj&prjId=1&corId=0&colId=0&navId=183276078&recId=4347 
Mnamon: Ancient writing systems in the Mediterranean Database: https://mnamon.sns.it/index.php?page=Immagini&id=27&img=875&lang=en# 

Reputedly from Timna.
Previously in the Private Collection of Captain John Aylward (1929-1986), Birmingham, acquired in South Arabia in 1958.
Sold at: Egyptian, Western Asiatic, Irish Bronze Age, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine Antiquities, Islamic Pottery and Metalwork, Sotheby’s, London, 13 July 1970, Lot 16.
With Paul Delplace, 30 rue de Namur, Brussels, acquired from the above sale, accompanied by description letter.
Private Collection of Carlo Bombieri, Milan, acquired from the above.
Thence by descent to his son, Enrico Bombieri (b. 1940), USA.
Sold at: Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London, 29 November 2017, Lot 73.
With Daniel Katz Ltd., London, acquired from the above sale.
Private Collection of Stuart Roden, London, acquired from the above on 1 February 2018, until 2026.
ALR: S00271022, with IADAA Certificate, this item has been checked against the Interpol database. 

Captain John Aylward (1929–1986)

Captain John Aylward (1929-1986) was born on 6 April 1929. He was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 22 December 1948 and promoted to Lieutenant on 22 December 1950, and then to Captain on 22 December 1954. He was posted in Yemen from September 1958 to November 1959 and seconded to the Second Battalion of the Aden Protectorate Levies, where he served in the Bayhan region of the Western Aden Protectorate (previously part of the ancient kingdom of Qataban). During this period, he curated a collection of ancient South Arabian antiquities, most of which were excavated from Timna and the nearby cemetery of Ḥayd ibn ‘Aqīl. He recorded his time here in an unpublished report titled ‘A Private Report on His Stay in “Qataban” and His Observations There from’.

Aylward returned to England on 27 November 1959, and was stationed at Barford Camp, Barnard Castle, in County Durham until his retirement on 12 April 1960. He loaned a portion of his collection, including this stele, to the nearby Bowes Museum from May 1960. Aylward retired to live in Edgbaston, Birmingham, in October 1960. At this time, he loaned a selection of items to the Birmingham City Art Gallery & Museum. Most of these were returned to Aylward in December 1964, but eight pieces were retained on loan until October 1978. Some of his works were also exhibited by Gimpel fils at 50 South Molton Street, London, from December 1970 to January 1971. Aylward died on 26 September 1986, but he began dispersing his collection at auction prior to his death, in sales at Sotheby’s on 17-18 July 1985 and 14 July 1986. The British Museum acquired three alabaster reliefs from the Aylward collection, including one previously known as the ‘Aylward stele’ (2002,0114.1).

Enrico Bombieri (b. 1940)

Enrico Bombieri (b. 1940) was born in Milan on 26 November 1940 to parents Carlo and Luisa (Cambi) Bombieri. He began reading mathematical theory at the age of 13 and in 1957, at the age of only 16, he published his first mathematical paper in 1957. At 23, Bombieri completed his PhD in mathematics from the Università degli Studi di Milano and moved to England to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, under Professor Harold Davenport. Bombieri qualified as a professor of mathematics in the following year, and worked at the University of Cagliari (1965), the University of Pisa (1966-1974) and the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (1974-1977). He then joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and remains there as IBM von Neumann Professor of Mathematics. He is also known for his pro bono work for advancing mathematics as a profession, including serving on external review boards and peer-reviewing the most complicated of manuscripts.

His research covered a wide spectrum of the field of number theory, but is most known for the ‘Bombieri-Vinogradov Theorem’ for applying the large sieve method, the ‘Bombieri-Lang Conjecture’, and the ‘Bombieri Norm’, among other theories. Some of his results have potential applications in the fields of cryptography and data security. Bombieri received many awards for his work, including: the Fields Medal (1974), Feltrinelli Prize (1976), Balzan Prize (1980), an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Pisa, the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and the Cavaliered I Gran Croce al Merito della Republica. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Accademia Nationale dei Quaranta in Rome, the Accademi Nacionale delle Scienze, the European Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy, the Institut de France, and Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society.

Bombieri was also an accomplished artist who searched the Alps for wild orchids as a young man. He married Susan Russell on 21 January 1961, and they had one daughter together.