An ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, dating to the late period (circa 712-332 BC), has sold for $52,500 in an online sale run by Artemis Gallery.
The lot came up for auction on June 13 in the Antiquities, Pre-Columbian and Ethnographic Art sale.
 The sarcophagus was produced in Ancient Egypt between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC |
It includes the traditional symbols of the underworld alongside the standard burial text, which appears to contain a mistake.
Artemis commented prior to the sale: "To indicate where the name of the future owner should be written on the objects, the model text would sometimes also contain empty spaces.
"But there are also cases where the model text used another method, namely writing the word "men" instead of the owner.
"'Men' means 'so-and-so', it was an indication that the artist who was copying the text should replace the word 'men' by the name of the buyer.
"But sometimes the artist did not realise this, and without thinking copied the word 'men' as if it were part of the text."
A Greek helmet of the Illyrio-Chalcidian variety sold for $12,000.
It dates to around the sixth century BC and was remodelled from a Corinthian design at some time during its lengthy history.
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