Sacred

“A statue or figurine is only considered sacred after it has been consecrated by a religious or priest beit in a rite or proper religious ceremony thus to determine if a statue is sacred or not, will never be known because the action of consecration may only involve the laying of hands and the recitation of certain appropriate text whilst others may involve stippling the statue/figurine with ink, the adornment with a chasuble, stole or a garment of some kind including fresh flowers or in other cases, the insertion of certain pulverized ashes inside a carved hole which was then plugged in. Thus without such obvious evidence present on a statue or figurine, one can only guess if a statue or figurine is sacred. Herein provenance becomes an important criteria because if that particular statue was proven to have sat inside a temple before, one can almost be certain that the figurine mentioned is indeed sacred. Anyhow in a way, it does enhance the value but put you into trouble if the origin is an important sacred site, if that is what you are interested in.”