Ali Aboutaam

Much artwork spanning many areas are sold through Phoenix Ancient Art.  One time frame covered is Scythian art and currently on sale through their e-Tiquities website is a Scythian Bronze Axe Head and a Scythian Bronze Deer.  For more information on Scythian art, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythian_art

Phoenix Ancient Art, co-owned by brothers Ali Aboutaam and Hicham Aboutaam, sells art from many different Eras, including the Cycladic culture.  Art from this culture can be categorized by three time periods: 2800-2500 BCE; 2500-200 BCE; and 2200-2000 BCE.  The art often overlaps these time periods (rather than being restricted to just one period).  The images were often used in graves, suggesting that they were important to the deceased during their lives, as opposed to being made for burial.  Central to Cycladic Art are best described as idols or figurines (most well-known as musicians: harp or pipe players) and gained popularity among the people of mainland Greece and Crete.  Ali Aboutaam is currently selling a Cycladic Marble Plate for $12,500.

Ali Aboutaam, through the e-Tiquities website and with his brother Hicham, sells many different types of ancient elegant artworks, spanning a variety of different time periods.  One of these is the Persian Empire which is actually a combination of a group of empires: Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanian.  This is what makes Persian art so interesting.  One cannot say that there is standard or classic Persian art because it was made over so many different periods, spanning a variety of cultures.  Yet there are still a few motifs that can be seen on all art associated with the Persian Empire, such as the hunt.

Ali Aboutaam and Persian Flask

Currently on sale by Phoenix Ancient Art from this time period is a Sassanian pinched glass flask which is made from yellow-tinged blown glass.  It was probably used for pricey cosmetics or perfume and originally had a stopper.  It has a very narrow neck which suggests the contents were quite precious, restricting the flow.  It is called Sassanian due to its decorative motif, common on Sassanian vessels from the 3rd century AD.

Ali Aboutaam, co-owner of Phoenix Ancient Art, specializes in various different time periods of historic art.  One such era is the Geometric and Orientalizing Greek Era.  This spans the 9th and 8th centuries BC and was produced throughout Greece, especially Athens.  In fact, in Athens during this time, much geometric pottery was being produced.  In fact, since people seemed to desire good quality dishes around 900 BC, potters really focused on what they were making and put much more detail into their pottery than they had done previously.  Vases with geometric and animal designs are typical of the Geometric Era whereas the Orientalizing Era typically depicts near-eastern motifs through metalwork.
Geometric Art Sold Through Phoenix Ancient Art

The Aboutaams currently have five pieces of art from this time period on sale through e-Tiquities as well as a number of catalogues.  These gems are: a Geometric bronze bird stamp seal; 2 Geometric bronze bulls; a Geometric bronze pendant Pyxis; and a Geometric bronze spherical pendant. This last piece – the pendant – sells for $1,600 and comprises three parts: vertical incisions in the middle; triangle incisions both at the top and bottom; upper stem pierced and curved.

In an amazing synthesis of the extraordinarily old with the most up-to-the-minute new, Hicham and Ali Aboutaam of Phoenix Ancient Art launched their landmark web site, E-tiquities. Click your way over to E-tiquities and get a gander of the most beautiful objects which have been cherished and preserved for thousands of years until our day. You are more than welcome to just browse, since one of the goals of this unique web-site is to open up the world of ancient art to a broader audience, to educate them about art from the deep past, and to hopefully interest them to belong to this special club of people who, more than owning the precious objects, become guardians of them for the future.

Even computer geeks might want to participate in the chain of ownership through the millennia, acknowledging that not everything is measured in nanoseconds, or gets obsolete in 5 years time.

The latest effort from  Hicham and Ali  Aboutaam,brothers and co-owners of Phoenix Ancient Art, to make the world of collecting antiquities accessible to the widest possible range of people is their flagship web-site e-tiquities.

Opened for business as of May 1st, 2009, e-tiquities offers antiquities for sale or bidding some of the most beautiful, rare and historical artifacts in the most convenient way possible. From the comfort of your computer you can gaze at and admire some of the world’s most magnificent examples of art from as long ago as Neolithic times, around the 6th millennium B.C.E. and from as wide an area as the Mediterranean Basin spanning in the west from Spain and Portugal to the Indus Valley where modern Pakistan is now, in the east.

Prices range from $500 and can go as high as $25,000. Some of the ancient cultures represented by the objects in the virtual gallery are Greek, Roman, Byzantium, Islamic, and a large selection of others.