Ali & Hichaam Aboutaam

What’s old is always in style.  At least that’s what people who love antiques say.  There are many great ways to decorate with antiques and to take the home décor to a whole new level of style with only a few key items.

When you start to search for antiques, you should first become familiar with the variety of choices at a location like Phoenix Ancient Art.  Antique dealers Hicham Aboutaam and Ali Aboutaam offer a great deal of information on their various sites, as do many other dealers.

One tip when starting to decorate with antiques is to group together like objects.  Stick to one time period, purchasing Mesopotanian statues to feature in one room, or Byzantine coins to display together.

There is a large selection of Byzantine antiques that collectors can find at auction houses, online locations such Phoenix Ancient Art, and other sites.  These pieces are characterized by their strong religious and imperial themes and include beautiful paintings, mosaics, jewelry, ivories and more.

The Byzantine Empire, as any historian or antiques dealer like Hicham Aboutaam can tell you, survived from the 4^th century A.D. until 1453 A.D. when Constantinople, the Empire’s capital, fell. Available antiques could include such treasures as a Byzantine gold inlay. This inlay shows a monogram that was very typical during the Byzantine period, as they used it as a method of identification and expression and to show that they were part of a larger group.

Other pieces, such as those you could find at Phoenix Ancient Art, include a spoon with an inscription, statues, jewelry such as the encolpion and more.

When shopping for antiques, you should certainly understand the various eras of art that you might encounter.  Websites such as Phoenix Ancient Art will give you a great overview of the many antiques and eras you might encounter.

Archaic antiques come from Greece and reflect the prosperous 6^th and early 5^th centuries B.C.  The most common antiques from this period, as antique dealers Hicham Aboutaam and Ali Aboutaam could explain, include statues of human figures and pottery.

One very unusual feature of the statues of this period is that most of them are smiling.  This is well known as the “archaic-smile” and it was, historians think, supposed to convey a feeling of peace.  Large statues from this period include monumental statues in marble and bronze that were created to decorate temples such as the Parthenon in Athens.  You can also find red-figure and white-ground pottery from this period.