Update: Finds or Fakes?

046

New Reading Bolsters Case for Jehoash Tablet

Editor’s Introduction

If genuine, the so-called Jehoash inscription would be of enormous significance. If a forgery, it is likewise of enormous significance, for it demonstrates the existence of an extremely sophisticated forgery conspiracy.

The Jehoash (Yehoash in Hebrew) inscription consists of 15 lines engraved on a 9 x 11-inch black stone plaque, memorializing contributions for repairs to Solomon’s Temple, then already more than a hundred years old. If authentic, it would be the first royal Israelite inscription ever discovered.

The especially startling aspect of the inscription is that it closely parallels the Biblical account of Jehoash’s repairs to the Temple in 2 Kings 12:5–17 and 2 Chronicles 24:4–14.

Jehoash/Yehoash, also known as Joash or Yoash, was the king of Judah from about 835 to 801 B.C. Actually, his name does not appear on the inscription. The first line has been damaged. Enough of his father’s name is left (Ahaziah; Ahazyahu in Hebrew), however, to clearly identify the son we know he fathered—Jehoash. The opening line in the inscription can therefore be reconstructed to include “[Jehoash son of A]haziah.”

Frank Moore Cross, America’s leading paleographer, early on declared that the Jehoash inscription “is demonstrably a forgery.”¹

According to Cross, “The manner in which the plaque’s account is composed—by taking phrases or words, now from Kings, now from Chronicles, interlarded with the occasional use of late language or biblical words with post-biblical meanings—leaves little doubt that we are dealing with a forger, and that, fortunately, it is a rather poor forgery.”²

One of Cross’s clues was the alleged forger’s identifying the copper used in the Temple repairs as being Edomite copper. The Hebrew is NḤS̭T ’DM (נחשת אדמ), literally “copper Edom.” Cross notes that “the mine smelters of Edom were a chief source of copper in Biblical antiquity, and the forger is sufficiently knowledgeable to have known this,” even though the Biblical author of Chronicles, while mentioning copper, does not specify where it came from.

A host of other prominent scholars concluded, as did Cross, that the plaque was a forgery. Among them were Cross’s student P. Kyle McCarter, the Albright Professor at the Johns Hopkins University; Joseph Naveh of Hebrew University; Avigdor Horowitz of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheba; and Israel Eph’al of Hebrew University. BAR published an article on the inscription, by Edward Greenstein of Tel Aviv University, entitled “Hebrew Philology Spells Fake,” which came to the same conclusion.^a A committee of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) also declared it a forgery.

But other scholars weren’t so sure. They were not ready to say it was authentic, but they weren’t satisfied that it was a forgery, either. Among them were Jerusalem archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, Sorbonne professor André Lemaire and Ada Yardeni, author of The Book of Hebrew Script.

Then Chaim Cohen, a philologist from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, gave a talk at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta saying that this inscription has not been proved to be a forgery from a linguistic or philological viewpoint. Following this, BAR published an article by David Noel Freedman saying much the same.^b Freedman is editor of the Anchor Bible Series and is one of the most prominent Bible scholars in the country. After that, a group of Israeli scholars wrote to their country’s Minister of Education, Limor Livnat (whose ministry supervises the Israel Antiquities Authority), stating that the IAA committee that had declared it a forgery had reached “hasty, premature conclusions” and made “professional mistakes … in the course of their deliberations.” The protesting group 047included scholars from Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, Herzog College, the Geological Survey of Israel and elsewhere. The signatories also charged that the IAA committee was biased and included people who had previously expressed negative views about the inscription but excluded people who had expressed favorable views. Livnat denied the group’s request for a meeting.

The burden of the argument of those who are not ready to declare the Jehoash inscription a forgery is that there are very few inscriptions from its purported time period, so it is difficult to say with any certainty that a particular locution is a sign of a forgery. In short, we really don’t know much about ancient Hebrew usage in the early first millennium B.C.

The short discussion that follows, by leading Jerusalem scholar and archaeologist Ronny Reich, illustrates one of the interpretive difficulties in the inscription—regarding the alleged use of the term “Edomite copper.” Reich was a member of the IAA committee that declared both the James ossuary—inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”—and the Jehoash inscription to be forgeries. In Reich’s view as a committee member, and speaking from his area of expertise, he concluded, “both inscriptions are authentic.” Nevertheless, in the end, he agreed with the committee that they are both forgeries because of the judgment of the geologists that the patina on them was “not … produced in nature in ancient times.” Therefore, he concluded, “I am forced to change my opinion.”

Reich emphasizes that he does not claim that the inscription is authentic. He just “tries to shake a little the firm conviction of the nay-sayers.” But if Reich is correct, the forger knew something that even the world’s greatest scholars did not pick up when they incorrectly translated NḤS̭T ’DM as “Edomite copper.” Unless, of course, the inscription is authentic.—Ed.

An Alternative Reading

Ronny Reich

The term I wish to discuss is in line 8 of the Jehoash inscription: NḤS̭T ’DM (נחשת אדמ). The first of these two words is unambiguous. It means copper (or sometimes bronze). Cross (and others) read the second word as Edom, rendering the term “Edomite copper” (Cross)³ or “copper of Edom” (Israel Eph‘al).⁴

The Biblical parallel from Kings mentions wood and stone, but not copper. The Biblical parallel from Chronicles does mention copper (or bronze), but this mention is not preceded by an adjective. The addition in the Jehoash inscription of the Edomite attribution as the source of the copper is said to be a mark of the forger’s cunning. Cross notes that the forger was erudite enough to know about the “[copper] mine smelters of Edom.” Israel Eph‘al notes that the identification of the source of metals is found in other inscriptions, such as “gold of Ophir” and “silver of Tarshish.”⁵ Though the source of the metal might be worthy of note in the case of gold and silver, he concludes, it would not be worthy of note in the case of copper. In Eph’al’s words, “Although mention of the remote origin of rare and expensive metals, such as gold and silver, might be reasonable, there 048would be no point in doing so when the metal is as common and inexpensive as copper.”⁶ A clear sign that the forger goofed—and gave himself away.

But ’DM can mean a number of other things (as Cross recognized), in part depending on what vowels are supplied (ancient Hebrew is basically a consonantal script). Thus, as Cross notes, it can mean “red” or “man(kind).” To translate the term “man(kind) copper,” however, doesn’t make much sense. While “red copper” would be possible since raw copper does have a red hue when extracted from the smelter, it turns greenish when oxidized.

But there are also other possibilities: Adam can mean “earth” or “ground.” And Adam can also be a place name (as scholars call it, a toponym). Could the term NḤS̭T ’DM also be read as “copper from Adam”?

The Bible itself offers guidance. In 1 Kings 7:46, the text describes how bronze (in Hebrew, the same word as copper) bowls for the Temple were cast “in earthen molds.” The word here translated as “earthen” is ’DMH, the same root as Edom, Adam (the first man), earth and red. A footnote in the New Jewish Publication Society translation tells us that a literal translation is “in the thick of the earth.” The curious thing about this text is that immediately following this we are told where the earthen mold was located: “in the plain of the Jordan [River] between Succoth and Zarethan.” That is, King Solomon had these metal vessels cast in earthen molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan. The text seems to be telling us that copper or bronze vessels were cast, not near Edom in the south, but far to the north, in the Jordan Valley.

From another Biblical passage we learn that near this same Zarethan there was a town called Adam. Joshua 3:16 tells us that when the Israelites first crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, the river stopped flowing to allow them to cross. The waters of the river piled up at “the city of Adam (’DM H ‘R) near Zarethan.” In short, there was a city called Adam near Zarethan where bronze (or copper) vessels were cast.^c

Copper ore was apparently mined near Punon (see Numbers 33:42–43), the 24th station after the Israelites left Sinai and the fourth station after they left Ezion-Geber, just east of Edom, near the rim of the Aravah, the valley that extends south from the Dead Sea. Today it is called the Wadi Feinan. Here the copper ore was mined and smelted into ingots. This is far to the south of the city of Adam in the Jordan Valley. In the city of Adam the copper ingots were cast in local workshops and manufactured into copper vessels and structural fittings. They were probably custom-made for specific structures.

Would King Jehoash, needing copper fittings for repairs to the Temple, have sent to the distant desert copper mines for ingots extracted from copper ore or would he have gone instead to the quite-close Jordan Valley workshops, like those in the city of Adam, where copper nails, door hinges and the like were available?

The answer is obvious. He would have gone to the workshops in the city of Adam. NḤS̭T ’DM in the Jehoash inscription is much more likely to mean “copper from Adam” than “copper from Edom.”

Cross suggests that the forger would have known about “the mine smelters of Edom [which] were a chief source of copper in biblical antiquity.” This is common knowledge. But that would not help the forger if he were writing about the copper workshops of Adam. We must then ask, would a forger know about the copper workshops of Adam? That is much more unlikely. And unless he knew about the copper workshops of Adam (which I believe is a much more likely reading), the nature of the inscription, genuine or a forgery, remains uncertain.

All Bogus: Three New Rumors

We don’t report the many rumors swirling around the bone box (also called an ossuary) mentioning Jesus—unless and until they are published in print or on the Internet. Uzi Dahari, the deputy director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and chairman of the IAA committee that declared the bone box (inscribed in Aramaic, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”) and the so-called Jehoash inscription (describing repairs to the Solomonic Temple) to be forgeries,^d told me (and others) that a conspiracy was involved in forging the bone box and that the conspiracy included “an honored Israeli archaeologist.” You can imagine the names that are being recklessly bandied about in the archaeological community. We do not repeat or report them.

In our previous issue, on the other hand, we reported a charge published on the Internet that the bone box was seen in an antiquities shop in the Jerusalem’s Old City in the mid-1990s, but with only the first part of the inscription—the part that does not mention Jesus. If true, the mention of Jesus must have been added sometime after the mid-1990s and must be a forgery. We tracked this rumor down to two Jerusalem scholars who appear to be lying about what they saw.^e

We also tracked down another rumor published on the Internet by a prominent American scholar that the owner of the box, Oded Golan, was aware of the significance of the Aramaic inscription on the box before it was read by Sorbonne paleographer André Lemaire. The “proof” was that Golan’s lawyer had offered to sell the bone box to the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem for $2 million before Lemaire ever saw the inscription with the mention of Jesus. If true, Golan was obviously lying. So we checked the facts with the International Christian Embassy: Golan never offered the 049bone box to the International Christian Embassy; but more important, the episode (involving an unauthorized marketer who took the BAR article to the embassy) occurred only after Lemaire had seen the inscription and after Lemaire published his article about it in BAR.^f So much for that rumor.

In this issue, we report on three other charges that have been made in print (and on TV). The first is that the bone box was looted in 1998 or shortly thereafter from the so-called Shroud Tomb in Jerusalem. If true, Golan must be lying when he claims to have owned the ossuary for decades. (Obviously, if he has owned it for decades without realizing its significance, having purchased it in the Old City for a few hundred dollars, as he claims, it is very likely to be authentic.)

The second rumor is ridiculous on its face: that the inscription was forged by multi-millionaire antiquities collector Shlomo Moussaieff of London, Israel and Monaco. This charge says more about the person making it than about Shlomo Moussaieff.

The third rumor involves the Jehoash inscription—that it was offered to the Israel Museum for $4 million.

The First Rumor

In a way, I am responsible for the first rumor. It all started on a trip to Jerusalem in mid-2002, when I visited some of the archaeological labs at Hebrew University. In one of them a charming young graduate student named Orit Peleg showed us hundreds of architectural fragments from the highly decorated Royal Stoa that Herod the Great had built at the southern end of the Temple Mount. The fragments had been excavated by the late Benjamin Mazar, having been thrown down beside the Temple Mount by the Romans in the wake of their destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Orit was going to write her doctoral dissertation on these fragments and hoped to be able to fit some of them together.

Oded Golan had told me that he was involved in some computer technology that I thought might be useful to Orit in putting the fragments together. I called him and asked if I could suggest to Orit that she contact him. He readily agreed, so I gave his telephone number to Orit. Now I’ll bet he wishes he hadn’t so readily agreed.

Every December Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv holds a conference on the latest developments in the history and archaeology of Jerusalem. Orit wanted to attend the conference, but needed a ride. She heard that a fellow graduate student, Rafi Lewis, was driving so she got a ride with him. While they were in Tel Aviv, Orit decided to follow through with Golan. She contacted him, and he graciously invited her to his apartment. Rafi, the driver, of course went with her. They talked about her project, but it didn’t seem that Oded could help her. Moreover, Oded didn’t have any similar fragments in his antiquities collection. But he did have an ossuary (he owns many ossuaries) with decoration on it of some kind of architecturally significant structure. He thought this might interest Orit, so he showed it to her. She was glad to see it, thanked him, and the two guests left. End of that chapter.

In the 2003 issue of the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society (which came out in 2004), editor Shimon Gibson, formerly of the Israel Antiquities Authority and now independently involved in archaeological projects, wrote an editorial that said:

[Oded] Golan at a meeting in December 2002 with two archaeology students from Hebrew University, Orit Peleg and Rafi Lewis, made a surprising statement indicating that the James ossuary had come from a tomb close to the junction of the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys in Jerusalem (Akeldama), suggesting therefore that it might actually have come from a tomb I excavated with Boaz Zissu and James Tabor which had been badly looted by antiquities robbers in 1998 before we even got to the site. The tomb robbers apparently had a very rich haul of complete ossuaries from our cave; those they did not take away with them they simply smashed up using pickaxes. Apparently a few of the ossuaries taken away had inscriptions, judging by the stories circulating amongst the antiquities dealers in Jerusalem. Why would Golan have wanted to volunteer this information? We shall probably never know for certain, but perhaps this was all a slip of the tongue, or a bit of bravado while showing off his collection to the students.

Gibson later repeated the same thing on television.

This would indeed be a surprising statement for Golan to make. If the James ossuary had been found (in fact, looted) in 1998 or shortly before, Golan must be lying about owning the ossuary for decades. When I read this statement in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, I, too, was surprised, so I called Orit.

She told me that the subject of the James ossuary never came up on her visit to Golan!

Then I called Rafi Lewis. His story is totally different from Orit’s. According to Rafi, when Golan brought out the ossuary with architectural decoration, the students asked where most ossuaries are found. Golan replied they are found mostly on French Hill (in Jerusalem) and in Silwan (an Arab village just east and south of the Old City). At the time, Rafi was involved in the Gibson-led excavation of a cave tomb in Akeldama 050(Potter’s Field, or the Field of Blood),^g in which they had found the remnants of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus. So, at the meeting in Golan’s apartment, Rafi asked Golan if he included the Kidron and Hinnom Valley within Silwan. (Akeldama is at the confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys). Golan replied that Silwan had no precise boundaries but that it would include the Kidron Valley, adding that the dealer who sold the James ossuary to him claimed that it had been found in the old cemetery in the Kidron Valley. (This cemetery is on the eastern flank of the Kidron, north of Akeldama; Akeldama is on the west.)

Rafi heard this as meaning that the ossuary had been found in Akeldama, at the confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys. And, if so, why not in the tomb that he, Rafi, was helping to excavate? Golan, for his part, says that he had never heard of Akeldama at that time.

As Gibson wrote, it would be passing strange for Golan to blurt out that his already famous ossuary had been found at a particular spot, thereby admitting that it had recently been looted. To explain this strange admission, Gibson attributes it to a slip of the lip or simply bravado. Neither explanation carries much conviction.

Rafi, however, was excited by what he thought he heard. Perhaps the ossuary came from the same looted cave tomb he was excavating. The next day he told Gibson about the “surprising” remark Golan had made. Gibson told Rafi to make notes of the conversation so that he would not have to depend on a later recollection about what Golan in fact said. Even now, Rafi remembers smiling at Orit when he heard Oded say where the ossuary had been found. “I heard bells like Christmas ringing in my ears,” he said. Rafi agreed to send me a copy of the notes he had made of the conversation.

I then called Orit again to make sure I had heard her correctly. She confirmed that her recollection was very different from Rafi’s. She also expressed dismay at now being entwined in the ossuary dispute. Shimon Gibson had never called to check whether he could attribute the statement to her, as Gibson later acknowledged.

When I did not receive from Rafi the promised copy of his notes, I called him again. He said that as he now works for the IAA, he had to check first with the director, Shuka Dorfman, for permission. When I next spoke to Rafi, he told me that he had spoken to Dorfman and to Amir Ganor, who heads the anti-looting section of the IAA. They told Rafi that he was to have “no contact” with me. He didn’t know why—“for their own reasons,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry, really sorry. As soon as things clear up, I’ll be the first one to send [the notes] to you.”

The Second Rumor

Rochelle Altman is a so-called independent scholar—that is, without academic affiliation—who specializes in medieval manuscripts and who has developed her own “script system.” She has never published an ancient Hebrew inscription. She regards conventional academic paleographers and epigraphers of the period with disdain: “Paleographers and epigraphers study only a part of a writing system. This is akin to the blind men and the elephant … In order to understand the documents, we must see the whole ‘elephant,’” she told an interviewer.^h

Although she is unknown in the world of Hebrew paleography, she saw the appearance of the James bone box as an opportunity to gain international publicity. She pronounced the inscription on the box a forgery the moment a picture of it appeared. André Lemaire, who first published the inscription, had erred, among other things, she said, in failing to see that the inscription was excised, not incised; that is, the letters protruded from the surface rather than being engraved into the surface. It is obvious even to an untrained eye, however, that the inscription is in fact incised. But Altman had never seen the ossuary; she based her charge on a photograph. She has since dropped this charge.

But she is articulate and has gained considerable publicity for her view that the ossuary inscription is unquestionably a forgery. In a recent New Yorker article,ⁱ which calls her a “Web-based scholar,” she is almost the only authority cited as attacking the inscription on the basis of the writing itself. According to the article, “The clue to the mystery of the James ossuary had been hidden in plain sight all along.” Other scholars just hadn’t seen it. Supposedly, only Altman had. The inscription contained “a double negative” in “brother of Jesus.” In fact, this supposed double negative was the focus of attention by one of the world’s greatest Aramaicists, Father Joseph Fitzmyer. Fitzmyer’s research uncovered other examples of the construction in ancient Aramaic.^j Frank Moore Cross, one the world’s most prominent paleographers, found another example from the ancient literature.^k So much for Altman’s clue that everyone else had missed.

In Mary and the Ossuary, a book devoted to Altman’s views, author Ian Ransom interviews her at great length. Toward the end of the book, he persuades her to reveal the name of the forger of the ossuary inscription, but only by indirection.

“[Interviewer]: Dr. Altman, do you know who forged the James Ossuary inscription?

“RA: … Yes, I do know the identity of the ‘Jerusalem forger’ but I will not say it … Even when people know beyond the shadow of doubt who the forger or forgers are, they quite understandably will not say a name or rather take an indirect route to naming.

“[Interviewer]: Dr. Altman, do you know of such evidence regarding the identity of the ‘James Ossuary’ forger or forgers?

“RA: Perhaps …”

Altman then proceeds to divulge his name in code: Shlomo Moussaieff! In 2002 051Moussaieff, the multimillionaire collector, gave someone an inscribed copy of a book. The dedication was written in a hand the recipient could not read. The recipient showed the dedication to Altman. Altman remarks that she hopes that the owner of the book will show it “to the Israel Antiquities Authority or the Israel Police.” Altman then quotes her notes that revealed the name of the forger: “SM writes a beautiful hand.” The key is that he switches smoothly between two script systems, the same two script systems that Altman says are used on the James ossuary inscription. The dedication by Shlomo Moussaieff “switch[es] w/o a hitch, smooth & pro[fessional]. No conglomerates (mixing of script systems) 4 [for] SM.” She then identifies the two script systems with their different fonts, found both on the ossuary and in Moussaieff’s dedication: “Font 1: BCE—DSS [Dead Sea Scrolls] everyday cursive. Font 2: chancery font of Rahmani 570 [a reference to L.Y. Rahmani’s ossuary catalog; ossuary 570 is the only other ossuary inscription that mentions a brother—Ed.].”

Does any other human being in the world suspect the 80-year-old Moussaieff, who has more money than God, of being the forger?

Perhaps not, but the charge does get Altman the attention she craves. Meanwhile, the Society of Biblical Literature devoted a session at its 2004 International Meeting, in Groningen, the Netherlands, to seals and inscriptions from Moussaieff’s famed collection.

The Third Rumor

The third rumor—concerning the Jehoash plaque, describing repairs to Solomon’s Temple—is easily disposed of: The rumor is that the plaque was offered to the Israel Museum for $4 million. In fact, the plaque was taken to the Israel Museum by Oded Golan for authentication. (Golan says he did so on behalf of the owner, a Palestinian Arab; the IAA claims Golan owns it.) James Snyder, director of the museum, says the ossuary was brought to the museum for authentication and that no price was ever discussed. As a matter of policy, he says, the museum never discusses price unless it is interested in acquiring the object. In the case of the Jehoash inscription, it never got to that point.—H.S.

A Crack in the Facade?

Two of the most vocal defenders of the archaeological establishment’s position on unprovenanced finds—which forbids any scholarly publication of artifacts from the antiquities market because they might have been looted—now recognize that the profession is deeply divided over the issue. Unprovenanced or (unprovenienced) finds usually appear on the antiquities market; they may have come from an old collection, an accidental find or from looting. Ellen Herscher, an independent researcher, and Patty Gerstenblith of DePaul University College of Law, recently acknowledged that “there is a growing divide in academic circles between those who would not consider studying unprovenienced material and those who feel we do a disservice to the archaeological record by ignoring this corpus.”

Both the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) have formal policies that prevent unprovenanced finds from being published in their journals, nor can studies of such objects be presented at the meetings of those organizations. Both Herscher and Gerstenblith have long been active in AIA and, more recently, they have assumed leadership positions in ASOR, which also formally supports their position.

The Israel Exploration Journal, however, regularly publishes unprovenanced finds. Those scholars who do study and publish unprovenanced finds are much less vocal about their position. Rarely are they heard on the subject. They simply go about their business of studying and publishing unprovenanced finds. All epigraphers must study unprovenanced finds; they cannot be scholars in their field and ignore them. Two of the world’s leading epigraphers have served as presidents of ASOR, but they nevertheless study and publish unprovenanced finds. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were looted and purchased from antiquities dealers, so every Dead Sea Scroll scholar would appear to violate the archaeological establishment’s policy. Numismatists, too, must study and publish unprovenanced finds: More than 90 percent of ancient coins are unprovenanced. Historians of art simply cannot ignore, for example, a Euphronios vase.

The argument in favor of the archaeological establishment’s position is that it reduces the motive to loot and therefore reduces looting. But Herscher and Gerstenblith now ask: “Do such bans [on publication] discourage the destruction of the world’s cultural heritage through illicit excavation?” In other words, is the policy effective?

Herscher and Gerstenblith also ask whether scholars who publish articles [any article!] in BAR or its sister magazine Archaeology Odyssey, both of which accept ads from antiquities dealers, are “complicit in the [illegal antiquities] trade.”

Together with Morag Kersel, a professor at Cambridge University and the author of “We Sell History: Issues in the Illicit Trade of Antiquities,” Herscher and Gerstenblith will chair a session at the ASOR annual meeting next November in San Antonio, Texas, entitled “Academic Responsibility, Publishing, and the Scholarly Use of Materials Without Provenience.” They are soliciting papers to be presented at the session from museum professionals, collectors and scholars who work with unprovenanced material (but, pointedly, not from antiquities dealers). Whether critics of the policy that Herscher and Gerstenblith support will volunteer to participate in the session remains a question. They may regard it as walking into the lion’s den. At last year’s ASOR meeting, the presenters were unanimous in denouncing not only collectors, but also antiquities dealers and museums that display such finds. Even accepting money from collectors was condemned as immoral scholarly behavior at the meeting.

052

Fakes Everywhere? The Plot Thickens—and Widens

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) claims it has uncovered hundreds of forged antiquities—in private collections, in the Israel Museum and even in its own storerooms, according to published sources.

The IAA has also discovered a “forgery factory” that has been in operation for 15 years, according to an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz appearing on March 24, 2004. “At the center of the [forgery] factory is the collector Oded Golan,” the owner of the ossuary inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” A committee of the IAA has found the famous ossuary inscription to be a forgery.

Except for the man in the “center” of the forgery ring, the IAA has not yet divulged the identity of any of the participants. Dr. Uzi Dahari, deputy director of the IAA, says the forgery conspiracy includes an “honored Israeli archaeologist.” But after almost a year, this “honored Israeli archaeologist” has still not been identified. BAR will promptly report any evidence of this widespread conspiracy as soon as it is released.

The IAA has also questioned one of the prize artifacts in the Israel Museum, a small ivory pomegranate that may have come from Solomon’s Temple. The pomegranate, apparently the head of a priestly wand, is inscribed around the shoulder: “Holy to the priests, (belonging) to the Temple of [Yahwe]h.” James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum, told BAR: “I only know what I read in the newspapers. Nothing has been presented to us. We are always willing to look at evidence that one of our pieces is a forgery, but in this case there is nothing to look at. We had it carefully examined before purchasing it by independent experts outside the museum and they raised no question about its authenticity.” At this point, the Israel Museum still believes in the authenticity of the little pomegranate, for which it paid $550,000. “It is too bad that it has just been presented to the media as a platform for publicity,” Snyder continued. “It is unfortunate for the archaeological world that so many objects are now being questioned without substantiation.”

When Ha’aretz sought to learn the basis of the IAA’s charge against the pomegranate, in the newspapers’ words, “The Antiquities Authority refused to reveal the origins and nature of the information it holds.”

The IAA apparently has solid proof of the forgeries, but cannot reveal it at this time. Or so it would have the public believe.

Another major inscription that the IAA has found to be a forgery is the so-called Three Shekel ostracon (an ostracon is a piece of pottery used as a kind of ancient notepaper), its ink inscription purporting to be a receipt for a contribution of three shekels to Solomon’s Temple.^l Its authenticity has been previously questioned, and arguments pro and con have been presented in BAR.^m But the IAA now gives a new reason for its contention that it is a forgery. The ostracon, which belongs to collector Shlomo Moussaieff, has been examined by Tel Aviv University archaeologist and petrologist Yuval Goren, who told the New Yorker magazine that the ostracon was covered by a tell-tale film of paraffin.⁷ Goren says that “it is easy to see globs of paraffin that were used to protect the inscription while a fake patina was applied.” Just how this worked together to conceal the forgery is not made clear. How was the fake patina made and applied? How would the paraffin protect the inscription during this process? We are not told. Equally important, Goren has apparently failed to consider innocent explanations for the paraffin. According to some accounts, it was applied by an early owner of the ostracon to protect the writing.

The failure to consider innocent explanations of an observed phenomenon is becoming the hallmark of Goren’s work. In the case of the James ossuary inscription, he himself has said that the so-called inscription coating could be the result of an effort to conceal a forgery (again without explaining how this would conceal the forgery—see “Unanswered Questions,” following this story) OR (the word is his) the result of 053cleaning the inscription. He never gives further consideration, however, to this latter possibility.

Some now question this heavy reliance on Yuval Goren. For others, however, Goren is a dragon-slayer. The annual report of Tel Aviv University’s archaeology institute features a picture of Goren and brags that he “has been playing a major role in the material analysis and the examination of the authenticity of the James ossuary and the Jehoash inscription [describing repairs to Solomon’s Temple], as well as many other items that are now under the investigation of the Fraud Unit of the Israeli Police and the Israel Antiquities Authority.”

But for Goren it is not simply that all these artifacts come from the antiquitites market. Worse still, they have previously been authenticated by scholars and scientists. The recent New Yorker article describes Goren as “outraged” that scientists would lend their expertise to authenticate “objects from the illegal antiquities market.” Goren even wrote a letter to the Geological Survey of Israel protesting the fact that its scientists were examining objects from the market to determine whether they were authentic or not. (Goren declined to give BAR a copy of this letter.) For a scholar or scientist to check an object from the antiquities market for authenticity is immoral, Goren believes; to do so encourages the looters who feed the market. When a scholar or scientist authenticates an object, its value is enormously increased and this increases the rewards for looting. Scientists and scholars shouldn’t do it. Goren holds these beliefs quite passionately.

The problem is, of course, that Goren was doing precisely what he abhors when he examined all these objects to determine their authenticity. That is what he agreed to do when he consented to serve on the IAA committee to determine whether the James ossuary inscription is a forgery or authentic. Unless, of course, Goren would never find any of these things authentic. Ay, there’s the rub. It would appear that Goren could act morally only by finding that the objects were forgeries. And that is just what he has done.

A group of Israeli scholars from Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University and elsewhere have charged members of the IAA committee that found the James ossuary inscription and the Jehoash inscription to be forgeries with having made up their minds in advance, with approaching the question with bias.ⁿ Yuval Goren is chief among those so charged.

Unanswered Questions: Why BAR Maintains That Forgery Has Not Been Demonstrated

When the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the James ossuary inscription (“James son of Joseph brother of Jesus”) to be a forgery, it unfortunately left a number of questions unanswered. These unanswered questions lead us to doubt the soundness of the IAA’s conclusion.

Before publishing these questions, we addressed them to Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv Univesity, the geologist on the IAA committee whose analyses led to the committee’s conclusion.

Goren replied, presumably in jest, “OK, you convinced me. The ossuary is undoubtedly the authentic bone box of James, the brother of Jesus.”

The questions remain unanswered.

The basis of Goren’s judgment that the inscription is a forgery is this: Over and around the inscription is a modern coating (the “inscription coating”), which he knows to be modern because his collaborator, Avner Ayalon, examined the oxygen isotopes in it, which show that it was made with water hotter than appears naturally in the Jerusalem hills. This inscription coating, Goren says, could have been placed there by the forger OR it could be the result of cleaning the inscription. Goren never explores the latter possibility. But I say no more about this possibility for the moment. Aside from this possibility, several questions arise.

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Question 1: How was the inscription coating made?

According to Goren’s first guess, the forger scraped some limestone from the ossuary, mixed it with hot water to make a paste and applied the paste to the inscription area. The hot water, not found in nature, produced the anomalous oxygen isotope that unmasked the forger.

In an article in BAR, James Harrell pointed out that the limestone would not dissolve in hot water and would therefore not produce the key isotope that Goren found.^o So the inscription coating could not have been created in this way. Goren has now admitted he was wrong.

Goren’s second guess is that the forger mixed the scraped limestone with water at an ordinary temperature to make the paste, applied it to the inscription area, then baked the thing in an oven (which supplied the heat that produced the telltale oxygen isotope). But Harrell pointed out that this wouldn’t work, either. It would not produce the key oxygen isotope. Goren has now admitted that in this, too, he was wrong.

Harrell explained that the forger-unmasking oxygen isotope would be produced only if the scraped limestone were dissolved in acid. But this would leave a telltale residue that was not there.

Goren had an answer for this. What Harrell said was true, Goren recognized, except for one particular acid—carbonic acid. Limestone scrapings would dissolve in carbonic acid, and would produce the telltale oxygen isotope without leaving any residue, exposing the forger as having used the acid to create the paste.

Harrell concedes that Goren is correct, but carbonic acid, Harrell replies, is not available commercially. You cannot just go out and buy it. You must create it in the laboratory—not an easy task. So, if we are to believe Goren, we must suppose that the forger was dumb enough not to use a simple paste of limestone scrapings and water, and smart enough to know that if he dissolved the scrapings in acid he would produce a telltale residue—unless he used carbonic acid instead of commercially available acids—and that he was also smart enough to know how to make the carbonic acid in his own laboratory.

Is that what you now believe happened, Professor Goren? If not, how did the forger make the inscription coating?

Question 2: Why was the inscription coating applied?

Goren assumes that the forger applied the inscription coating to the area of the inscription in order to mask his newly engraved inscription.

But this is a pretty dumb way to try to mask a forged inscription. The first thing a forger would do after engraving the inscription would be to sandblast it a bit to make it look old. Indeed, this is what Goren himself recommended in instructing the world how to make a forged inscription.

But this forger did not do this. He apparently decided to go through the elaborate process of masking the forged inscription with the inscription coating. With extraordinary geochemical knowledge he created the paste, but then made the dumbest mistake you can imagine. He made the paste a different color than the rest of the ossuary bore. The inscription coating is “grayish.” The ancient patina on the rest of the ossuary is “brown-ocher.” How dumb can you get?

Professor Goren, why do you suppose the forger didn’t make the inscription coating the same color as the rest of the ossuary? (Or, as you also conjectured, but never followed through, was the inscription coating the result of efforts to clean the inscription to make it “show” better?)

Question 3: Is there any ancient patina in the letters of the inscription beneath the inscription coating?

Beneath the inscription coating were (or are) two other films, as we know from the non-inscriptional areas of the ossuary. You call the lowest “rock varnish” and say it is produced by algae or bacteria. Above that is real ancient patina, consisting of calcite crystals that you could remove only with a metal scalpel. Above that is the “inscription coating” that you could remove with a toothpick.

The most serious problem a forger faces in engraving an inscription on a surface on which there is rock varnish and ancient patina is that the forger will cut through these two strata in making his inscription. His work will be obvious. Presumably it was this that the forger of this inscription wanted to conceal with the inscription coating.

Conversely, in a truly ancient inscription, there will be ancient patina in the letters of the inscription. If there is any ancient patina in the letters of the inscription, the burden of proof shifts: The inscription is authentic unless it can be shown that the forger somehow created ancient-looking, but nevertheless fake, patina in the letters of the inscription.

The first thing to look for, therefore, is ancient patina in the letters of the inscription—underneath the inscription coating. Orna Cohen, a member of the IAA committee, said she saw some. So did Amnon Rosenfeld and Shimon Ilani of the Israel Geological Survey when they examined the ossuary earlier. According to this theory, so little was found because the inscription had been cleaned. But even a little is enough: If there is any ancient patina in the letters, the inscription is authentic—unless you 055can show that a forger somehow forged this patina; and there is no suggestion of that here.

Professor Goren, how do you explain the ancient patina that Cohen, Rosenfeld and Ilani saw in the letters of the inscription? Can you say definitively that there is no ancient patina in any of the letters of the inscription? If so, why haven’t you said so previously?

Question 4: Is there ancient patina that runs up to the edges of the letters of the inscription?

One problem a forger faces, as we have just seen, is that a new inscription on stone covered with patina will have no patina in it and thus will unmask the forger. But he has still another problem: Not only will there be no patina in the letters of the inscription, but the ancient patina (and the rock varnish) will run up to the very edge of the newly inscribed letters, thus further exposing him. If the ancient patina (and rock varnish) does not run up to the edge of the letters in the inscription, we must ask why. One obvious possibility is that the inscription has been cleaned. (And you said, Professor Goren, that the inscription coating could be the result of cleaning.)

So the questions that this leads us to, Professor Goren, are these: Can you tell us from your examination whether the ancient patina (and rock varnish) run up to the letters of the inscription? If they don’t, how do you account for this? Could this be the result of cleaning? If so, why haven’t you ever followed through on explaining why the inscription coating could not be the result of cleaning? After all, it was you who suggested this possibility, but then you simply dropped it. Please give us your reasoning.

Supplemental Question:

Harrell has proposed a way, in his words, “to verify, rather than merely suggest, the antiquity of the inscription. It is a reanalysis of the traces of brownish patina seen not only in the letters of the word Jesus by Orna Cohen, but also in other words of the inscription by Amnon Rosenfeld and Shimon Ilani of the GSI. If it can be shown that these traces are compositionally the same as the ancient brownish patina elsewhere on the ossuary, then it would be very difficult to refute the inscription’s authenticity. This reanalysis can be accomplished by collecting small pieces of brownish material from inside the letters (and, for comparison, other parts of the ossuary) and doing a fully quantitative element analysis using an electron microprobe [which not only reveals the elements, but the proportion of each and needs only a minuscule sample].”

Professor Goren, do you agree that such an analysis would be as revealing as Professor Harrell thinks it would be? Would you agree that it should be done or do you feel your own previous analysis is so conclusive in demonstrating that the inscription is a forgery that the reanalysis suggested by Harrell is unnecessary?—H.S.

Late News: Will Israel Charge Oded Golan with Forgery?

Will the government of Israel prove in court that the James ossuary inscription—“James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”—is a forgery? Or will it attempt to prove that Oded Golan, who owns the ossuary, is guilty of other crimes? Or both?

Some say that the government wants to get Golan on whatever it can—like a murder suspect charged with running a red light.

During a court hearing on May 10 regarding Golan’s request for the return of the thousands of items in his collection confiscated by the police more than 14 months ago, the government revealed that it was investigating Golan not only for forgery, but also for fraud, interfering with the investigation, money laundering, trading in antiquities without a license, exporting antiquities without a permit, selling forged antiquities and selling property acquired illegally.

In its petition for an extension of time to retain the confiscated objects, the government stated to the court in camera (in secret) that in the last three months (since the last extension was granted) the police have “opened new avenues of investigation [that] are of significant international importance.” The judge stated that a protocol submitted by the government “behind closed doors” contains a “detailed explanation of the [new] developments.” These representations are not given under oath and are unavailable to Golan or his attorney. These recent developments, the court said, “are liable to shed new light on the objects [in Golan’s antiquities collection] and their authenticity.”

In a telephone interview with BAR, Golan stated that he had “no idea, even the smallest idea, what they are talking about.”

In requesting the extension, the government also asserted that Golan had failed “to cooperate fully with the investigators.” The judge noted that Golan “had refused to respond to some of the investigators’ questions.” The court found that the material presented by the government “raises reasonable suspicion of offenses by [Golan] over the last [three-month] period.”

Golan acknowledges that he will no longer submit to government questioning. He claims he has been cooperating for over a year, answering more than 100 hours of questions, including one session of 30 hours. He was arrested for four days and then released without being charged. The government’s questions now have little or nothing to do with his collection, he claims. He states that on one occasion the government interrogators even asked whether he “has a sexual relationship with archaeology.”

The court noted that there are “suspicions that the majority of the collection [of confiscated objects] has origins in forgeries or antiquities which were acquired not according to the law.”

Initially, the government requested an open-ended period in which to retain the objects from Golan’s collection. The government attorney told the court that he could not estimate how long it would take to complete the investigation and file an indictment. In the course of the hearing, however, the government decided to settle for a six-month extension. The court gave the government only three months; if the government wanted more time, it would have to justify it to the court at the end of the three-month period.

The court declined to release even some of the thousands of objects to Golan because he “might be able to figure out from the release of these objects the direction of the investigation regarding the remaining objects.”

New Reading Bolsters Case for Jehoash Tablet

Editor’s Introduction

If genuine, the so-called Jehoash inscription would be of enormous significance. If a forgery, it is likewise of enormous significance, for it demonstrates the existence of an extremely sophisticated forgery conspiracy.