In October 2002, the competitive world of biblical archaeology was rocked by the discovery of the James Ossuary, a burial box said to have contained the remains of Jesus's brother. But doubts about its authenticity have led to an unholy spat, which finally goes to court next week in Jerusalem. DAVID ROWAN reports from IsraelThe small limestone vessel is either the first physical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth existed, or the most elaborate fraud perpetrated in modern biblical archaeology. Next week, a Jerusalem court will begin to consider how a 20 x 11 in burial box came to bear the sensational inscription 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus' - not only proof, its owner claims, that Jesus lived, but a definitive answer to the theological debate as to whether Mary gave him a brother. But while the owner, a 53-year-old Tel Aviv antiquities collector named Oded Golan, continues to insist furiously that 'the whole inscription is authentic', Israel's state-controlled antiquities body is this week finalising a rather more damning interpretation. After a two-year investigation, which drew in more than 100 witnesses, it accuses Golan of faking the inscription as head of a forgery ring that has deceived the world's collectors and museums for the past two decades. The ring's legacy, the prosecution claims, is one of the greatest ever treasure troves of fraudulent biblical artifacts, which has tarnished archaeological science, given false hope to the faithful, and belatedly raised questions about the collections of some of the world's leading museums, including the British Museum.
The story begins on October 21, 2002, when Hershel Shanks, publisher of the glossy and often polemical Biblical Archaeology Review, held a dramatic press conference in Washington DC. A 2,000-year-old bone box, or ossuary, had come to light, Shanks announced, which had implications 'not just for scholarship, but for the world's understanding of the Bible'.
André Lemaire, a leading specialist in Semitic inscriptions at the Sorbonne in Paris, had spotted it by chance a few months earlier, while visiting an Israeli collector's home in Tel Aviv. On examining the Aramaic engraving on the box - 'Yaakov bar Yoseph, Achui de Yeshua', or 'Yaakov son of Joseph, brother of Yeshua' - Lemaire could barely contain his excitement. 'It seems very probable that this is the ossuary of the James in the New Testament,' he concluded in the Biblical Archaeology Review. 'If so, this would mean that we have here the first epigraphic mention - from about 63AD - of Jesus of Nazareth.'
The owner's identity remained secret at this stage. Shanks disclosed only that the man had paid an Arab a few hundred dollars for the ossuary some years earlier, after it had been looted from a Jerusalem cave, but had failed to appreciate its significance. Shanks and Lemaire had shown the inscription to Ada Yardeni, a leading Israeli epigrapher, who had pronounced it authentic and dated the script to the first century AD. Shanks also approached the Geological Survey of Israel to examine the box 'scientifically'. Its laboratories studied the stone, the dirt clinging to its sides, and more importantly the patina (the surface residue that had built up over the centuries). The limestone, the scientists declared, was typical of that quarried in biblical Jerusalem. There was no evidence that modern tools had been applied, nor, indeed, anything 'that might detract from the authenticity' of the inscription and the patina.
There remained a debate as to whether James - the first Bishop of Jerusalem - was the literal brother of Jesus, and a tiny chance that the Jesus, James and Joseph in question were just ordinary Jerusalemites with popular contemporary names. Yet the implications of Shanks's announcement were unambiguous enough to make headlines across the world. As Shanks, now 75, explained breathlessly in a subsequent book, The Brother of Jesus, 'the evidence for the inscription's authenticity is compelling ... [This] may be the most astonishing find in the history of archaeology.'
The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto was first to display the artifact, in November 2002. Just hours before it was due to be unveiled to the media, the museum admitted that the ossuary had been seriously damaged in transit, creating cracks that would require its conservators' closest attention. Yet the drama was only just beginning. Even as the James Ossuary, as it was being called, was undergoing repair, troubling questions began to be raised about its authenticity. A crack through the lettering, it was whispered, had caused museum staff to query the age of some of the characters. A respected historian declared the inscription 'too perfect, too pat'. Epigraphers, too, were debating why the first part, 'James son of Joseph', was written in a straighter, more formal script than the second part, which they suggested could have been added later. There also remained doubts about the ossuary's provenance. Golan, by now revealed as the owner, said he 'could not remember' who had sold it to him. He was certain, however, that it had been well before 1978, when an Israeli law declared all subsequent acquisitions to be state property.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) decided to launch its own inquiries, calling in epigraphers, geoarchaeologists and other experts to examine the burial box independently. But almost immediately, the IAA found itself having to solve another biblical mystery. An inscribed black sandstone tablet, apparently 3,000 years old, had been anonymously offered to Israel's National Museum at a price reportedly over $4 million. This inscription, too, purported to be important enough to rewrite the history books. The IAA asked its investigators, who included Yuval Goren, head of the archaeology department at Tel Aviv University, and Avner Ayalon, from the Geological Survey of Israel, for their views on this second extraordinary find.
What made the tablet special was an inscription in ancient Hebrew with instructions from Joash, King of Judah in the 9th century BC, for maintaining King Solomon's Temple. If authentic, the Joash Inscription, as it became known, would be unprecedented physical evidence of the Temple's existence - 'an archaeological sensation', the Geological Survey of Israel concluded after an earlier brief examination, which 'effectively vindicates Jewish claims to the Temple Mount'. Except that it soon emerged that the mysterious middleman selling the tablet was already known to the authorities. His name was Oded Golan.
In June 2003, the IAA's teams of archaeologists, linguists, historians, palaeographers and epigraphers delivered their unambiguous verdict. Both the Joash Inscription and the James Ossuary were recent forgeries. They concluded that freshly carved letters had been covered with an imitation patina made from modern tap water and ground chalk, mixed with ancient charcoal to confound carbon-dating tests. The forger or forgers had been clever: the Joash Inscription contained microscopic globules of gold, a persuasive link to the burning gold walls of Solomon's Temple. But there had been some crucial slips. Yuval Goren discovered that the patina on the front - but not the back - of the Joash stone contained tiny marine fossils. This led him to conclude that the patina on this side of the stone had been added later - and certainly could not have formed naturally in Jerusalem, miles from the sea. Tests using an electron microscope also identified fluorine on the surface - raising the possibility that the patina had been cooked up using municipally fluoridated tap water.
A month later, the police raided Golan's Tel Aviv flat and found the James Ossuary - which he had previously insured for $1 million - sitting on a toilet seat on the roof. (Golan says the roof was 'safer' than his apartment, and that once his address had been leaked to the press, 'I was afraid that it might be stolen'.)
Amir Ganor, head of the IAA's theft unit, claimed that investigators had also found various other forgeries in various stages of completion, together with a 'factory' equipped to create them (materials used for restoration work, according to Golan). Among their haul, they said, were bags of semi-finished ancient royal seals, a blank stone with the same dimensions as the Joash tablet, a newly engraved ossuary, and moulds that could be used to reproduce bronze statues.
At the end of last December, Golan and four other men were charged on 18 counts linked to the 18-month investigation. According to the indictment, the alleged forgeries - which the men deny - 'might have misled millions of Christians all over the world, as well as scholars of history and archaeology worldwide'. The IAA also warned collectors and museums in and outside Israel that their precious relics may not be what they seem. 'We discovered only the tip of the iceberg,' its director, Shuka Dorfman, said. But it wasn't simply the fact that the alleged forgeries had raked in 'millions of dollars' that bothered him. It was also that the accused 'were trying to change history'.
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In a navy Eeyore sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans, Oded Golan sits at his elderly parents' living-room table in northern Tel Aviv, wearily denouncing the case against him as 'Kafkaesque'. As his mother brings in iced lemonade, Golan, his jet-black hair set off by a sharp, straight nose, unflinchingly recounts the series of 'intentional manipulations' and 'blatant lies' which he says the IAA has laid against him. Its evidence, he says with a shrug, has less merit than the Western case against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Until a couple of days ago, it seemed unlikely that this meeting would take place. Golan, an unmarried serial entrepreneur, has been in jail for the past month, accused of unlawfully contacting a witness. He has been freed only after the Supreme Court's intervention, on the strict condition that he does not leave his parents' apartment. 'They are,' he complains, 'trying to make it impossible for me to defend myself.'
As Golan tells it, he is simply a devoted antiquities collector caught up in the IAA's undeclared war against the legitimate trade. 'I've collected for 44 years, starting at the age of nine, and over time I've purchased more than 3,000 pieces,' he says with calm self-assurance. By his own estimate, Golan - a property developer, software entrepreneur and former airline agent - owns 'probably the largest private collection of biblical archaeology in the world', much of it displayed on his parents' shelves and in his own apartment. 'The IAA and the police claim that Oded Golan sold hundreds of forgeries and antiquities for dozens of years for millions of dollars,' he says, slipping detachedly into the third person. 'But in all this time, I've sold or exchanged antiquities on less than 10 occasions. That tells you the whole story in one sentence.'
The charge sheet, which ranges from forgery to suborning others to commit perjury, lists Golan in various combinations with his co-defendants: Robert Deutsch, who owns three antiquities shops in Tel Aviv and Jaffa; Shlomo Cohen, who used to run a Jerusalem antiques shop; Rafi Brown, a former conservator at the Israel Museum; and Faiz El Amlah, a West Bank Palestinian. The 18 charges cover the James Ossuary and the Joash Inscription, as well as various inscribed pottery shards, clay seals, a jug, a bowl and a decorative lamp.
According to the indictment, the alleged forgery ring has claimed some astonishingly high-profile victims over the years. In 1988, the Israel Museum, the country's pre-eminent custodian of Holy Land art and archaeology, put on display a revered inscribed pomegranate carved from a hippo's tooth, bearing the words 'Holy to the priests, Temple of [Yahwe]h'. André Lemaire, the French expert on ancient lettering, discovered the carving in a Jerusalem antiquities shop, and, as with the ossuary, unhesitatingly testified to its importance - leading the museum, until recently, to link it beyond doubt to the First Jewish Temple. So keen, indeed, was the museum to acquire such a precious relic that it paid $550,000 to an anonymous collector in a transaction involving numbered Swiss bank deposit boxes. To its great embarrassment, a few days before charges were brought against Golan and his alleged associates, the museum announced that, following tests by Yuval Goren, this inscription too was a modern forgery.
'It was very hard for the investigating committee to say the pomegranate was a fake,' recalls Uzi Dahari, the IAA's deputy director, who commissioned Goren's forensic tests. 'This was the first evidence from the Temple in Jerusalem. For religious people on the committee, it broke their hearts to say it was a forgery. The Joash Inscription too, it's something unique for the Jewish people. But what can we do? Truth is above everything.'
The IAA, whose main business is to license dealers and regulate excavations, has pursued Golan with utter determination. In bringing the charges, jointly with the police, the authority has built up 10,000 pages of written evidence as well as hours of video and audio interviews, and the court case is expected to last months - if not a year.
Yet on paper, the indictments appear oddly incomplete. If Golan is at the head of a 'ring', in none of the 18 charges is he linked with more than one other defendant. He alone stands accused over the ossuary, the Joash tablet, the bowl and the lamp; and although Robert Deutsch is jointly charged with him over some pottery shards, a decanter and some clay seals, Deutsch by himself has to answer charges over three further pottery pieces. And although the pomegranate is included as evidence of a 'ring', none of the defendants is charged in connection with it.
These apparent omissions may stem from the difficulty of proof: forgers, after all, would hardly leave a trail of receipts, and in the world of unprovenanced antiquities, it is common practice for buyers not to know a seller's name. But the gaps have given the defendants an opportunity to cast doubt on the entire case. Golan promises to sue Dahari for damaging his name - once, of course, he has cleared himself. Deutsch, for his part, says he will sue the IAA 'for at least $20 million'. 'I haven't seen Golan in eight years,' Deutsch insists in his shop, on a winding path in old Jaffa. 'Now I have clients asking me if the pieces they bought from me are genuine, people who owe me money not wanting to pay me, friends not talking to me. They really achieved what they wanted with that monstrous fabrication - to destroy my name.'
Golan, in particular, seems to enjoy parrying each IAA accusation with a confidently asserted put-down. How could he afford to build his vast collection? He is independently wealthy, he says, through his family's '50 or 60 properties'. How does he account for the 124 witnesses the prosecution has to call on? 'Lawyers tell me that when you have a case, you need two or three witnesses,' Golan says. 'When you don't have anything, you need hundreds.' As for the 'ring', no professional fraudsters would produce such a wide range of items, he insists. 'If you're a specialist in making sculptures, you'll make sculptures. If you make inscriptions on pottery shards, you'll see dozens of those on the market.
'You need palaeographers. You need the best expert in the world to write the Joash Inscription in ancient Hebrew. Then you need the best expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics to make the bowl. Where are the epigraphers? Where are the chemists? It's Oded Golan, Oded Golan. He's Superman!'
And the ossuary, now widely discredited? 'I'm still sure now, as close to 100 per cent as possible, that the whole inscription is authentic,' Golan says without breaking eye contact. 'So Yuval Goren finds the patina is not in its natural condition. That's because the inscription has been cleaned. All the world's important pieces have been cleaned. Just examine the Mona Lisa and you'll find varnish that didn't exist 500 years ago.'
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Pinned to the wall in Yuval Goren's laboratory at Tel Aviv University is a cutting from a recent edition of Nature magazine. 'Indiana Goren,' it is headlined. 'At 48 years old, intense and good-looking, Goren could easily be the model for the hero of an archaeological detective series ...'
After two years on the case, Goren says he now regrets being thrust into the role of fraud-buster. He had not realised quite how venomous the arcane world of archaeological scholarship could be: his own reputation has repeatedly been smeared by those who refuse to accept that the ossuary is fake, with suggestions that he is out of his depth, or the lure of "fame" has tarnished his judgment.
Hershel Shanks, who still refuses to recant the validation he initially lent to the ossuary ('I don't know if it's a forgery or not,' he says curtly. 'I'm just a publisher, not a scholar'), accuses Goren of doing 'a very bad job' in rejecting the inscription. 'He doesn't know anything about palaeography, and nobody has shown that anything's wrong palaeographically,' Shanks says dismissively. 'At best, you have a conflict of experts.' The IAA's Dahari, in turn, has publicly attacked Shanks as 'totally crazy' and his assertions as 'pathetic'.
For a case focusing on biblical provenance, there has been an unholy level of bickering. One of Robert Deutsch's biggest customers was the London multi-millionaire Shlomo Moussaieff, to whom Deutsch dedicated a book last year on his 80th birthday. Moussaieff is mentioned in nine of the charges as a target of the alleged fraudsters, and is said to have paid $200,000 for an inscribed pottery shard, and to have written a $1 million cheque for a royal seal. Deutsch, in his shop, now attacks his former client in terms that would make a libel judge blanche. Moussaieff did not respond to requests for comments.
The fighting has also extended to those not directly linked to the case. And if institutions besides the Israel Museum have displayed biblical-era forgeries, they are not admitting it. The Royal Ontario Museum claims to have 'no new information pertaining to the James Ossuary that would lead us to conclude that it is not authentic'. The British Museum, too, says it knows nothing about any alleged fakes in its displays.
But on strictly scientific grounds, Yuval Goren claims that there is no question that the James Ossuary is a fake - 'and not a very sophisticated one at that'. Of almost 100 other items he examined in this case, 'only 10 to 20', he says, proved to be genuine. Sitting in his basement laboratory, Goren explains that he now understands a little more about the faker's mindset. 'The motive is not necessarily financial,' he reflects. 'The Piltdown fraud wasn't for money, nor were those of Shinichi Fujimura in Japan, who created his own sites and excavated them. No, it's often fame or the mental challenge. They're well-informed autodidacts who feel marginalised by the academy. So they're flattered when people like us show interest. I'm sure the forger behind this was very happy to outsmart some of these distinguished professors.'
With a certain mischievous humour, Goren offers to share with me the secrets of faking a priceless ancient inscription. First, he says, always carve your letters using an iron tool, which will leave no traces of modern nickel or cadmium. Next, 'age' the inscription using an airbrush filled with quartz powder, before creating its 'ancient' patina by grinding stone into a watery paste. Burn tiny amounts of pure gold on to the surface, plus a bit of iron-age charcoal, and then bake your stone at 300C. Finally, bring in a few 'innocent scientists' to confirm its authenticity before surreptitiously sneaking it on to the market.
(The Daily Telegraph Magazine, May 14 2005)
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