Jehoash Inscription
Encyclopedia
The Jehoash Inscription is the name of a controversial artifact rumored to have surfaced in the construction site or in the Muslim
cemetery near the Temple Mount
of Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority
reported that the inscription is a modern day forgery.
The inscription describes repairs made to the temple in Jerusalem by Jehoash
, son of King Ahaziah of Judah
, and corresponded to the account in 2 Kings chapter .
The owner was, purportedly, an anonymous antiquities dealer in Hebron
and the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) initially backed up this claim.
The artifact soon reignited the conflict between Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount
and the Israeli group of Temple Mount Faithful, who declared that the find was a divine sign that the al-Aqsa Mosque
of the Temple Mount should be demolished and the new temple built on it immediately.
Israeli historian Nadav Na'aman, who had theorized that the books of the Kings could be based on public inscriptions, opined that a possible forger could have used his theory as a basis. Epigrapher
Joseph Naveh of the Hebrew University revealed to the Israel Antiquities Authority
and police that he had met the owners of the stone and had recognized the inscription as a collection of Hebrew
, Aramaic and Moabite
letters. Frank Cross of Harvard University
noted various errors in spelling and terminology. Yuval Goren of Tel-Aviv University demonstrated how the convincing fake could be produced by abrasive airbrushing. The stone itself remained hidden.
Another study disputes this as A. Rosenfeld and S. Ilani from the Geological Survey of Israel, H. R. Feldman from the Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School a Division of Touro College division of Paleontology (Invertebrates) American Museum of Natural History, W. E. Krumbein from the department of Geomicrobiology ICBM, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and J. Kronfeld from the department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel-Aviv University supports the antiquity of the patina
, which in turn, strengthens the contention that the inscription is authentic.
correspondent Boaz Gaon reported that Israel Antiquities Authority Theft Unit had focused their attention of the "Jehoash Inscription" as being an expensive bait to defraud a prominent collector in London. Israeli investigators linked a phony business card
and a phone number to a Tel Aviv private eye who admitted that his employee was Oded Golan
, the collector who owned the James Ossuary. Oded denied that he was the owner of the stone and claimed that the real owner was a Palestinian antiquities dealer who lived in an area under Palestinian Authority and could not be identified.
A March 19, 2003, article in Maariv told that court had issued a search warrant
for Golan's apartment, office and rented warehouse. The search brought forth allegedly incriminating documents and photographs of Golan beside the Jehoash Inscription. Under interrogation, Golan promised to reveal the location of the stone in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Then police made a new search in storage space that Golan had rented in Ramat Gan but had not disclosed to them. There the police found scores of artifacts, ancient seals and other inscriptions in various stages of production along with the tools to create the imitations. Under harsh questioning, Golan admitted that he knew about the Jehoash Inscription and promised to hand it over.
, Israeli Minister of Culture, mandated the work of a scientific commission to study the suspicious find, as well as the James Ossuary
.
The commission concluded that various mistakes in the spelling and the mixture of different alphabets indicated that this was a modern forgery. The stone was typical to western Cyprus
and areas further west. Patina over the chiseled letters was different from that of the back of the stone and could easily be wiped off the stone by hand. In a press conference in Jerusalem on June 18, 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority commission declared the inscription a modern forgery.
, dated September 2005, Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg Germany, threw new light on the controversy. His conclusions contradict those of the Israel Antiquities Authority:
Professor Krumblein concludes that "Our preliminary investigations cannot prove the authenticity of the three objects beyond any doubt. Doubtlessly the patina is continuous in many places throughout surface and lettering grooves in the case of ossuary and tablet.
On the other hand a proof of forgery is not given by the experts nominated by the Israel Antiquities Authority."
Victor Sasson responds that "the sandstone inscription needs not be the first and original record. If the stone itself cannot scientifically be dated to late ninth century B.C.E., then the text could be a later copy of an original inscription... We do indeed have a reference to a possible renovation or restoration of an inscription. The author of the Tell Fakhriyah Assyrian-Aramaic bilingual inscription, dated to the mid-ninth century B.C.E., speaks of a possible future renovation of his
inscription."
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
cemetery near the Temple Mount
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
of Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority
Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...
reported that the inscription is a modern day forgery.
The inscription describes repairs made to the temple in Jerusalem by Jehoash
Jehoash of Judah
Jehoash or Joas , sometimes written Joash or Joás , was the eighth king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba ....
, son of King Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....
, and corresponded to the account in 2 Kings chapter .
The owner was, purportedly, an anonymous antiquities dealer in Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
and the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) initially backed up this claim.
The artifact soon reignited the conflict between Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
and the Israeli group of Temple Mount Faithful, who declared that the find was a divine sign that the al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque also known as al-Aqsa, is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem...
of the Temple Mount should be demolished and the new temple built on it immediately.
Israeli historian Nadav Na'aman, who had theorized that the books of the Kings could be based on public inscriptions, opined that a possible forger could have used his theory as a basis. Epigrapher
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
Joseph Naveh of the Hebrew University revealed to the Israel Antiquities Authority
Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...
and police that he had met the owners of the stone and had recognized the inscription as a collection of Hebrew
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
, Aramaic and Moabite
Moabite
Moabite may refer to:*a person from Moab, the former country of the Moabite people, currently located in the area of Jordan east of the Dead Sea*the Moabite language, an extinct Canaanite dialect once spoken in Moab...
letters. Frank Cross of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
noted various errors in spelling and terminology. Yuval Goren of Tel-Aviv University demonstrated how the convincing fake could be produced by abrasive airbrushing. The stone itself remained hidden.
Another study disputes this as A. Rosenfeld and S. Ilani from the Geological Survey of Israel, H. R. Feldman from the Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School a Division of Touro College division of Paleontology (Invertebrates) American Museum of Natural History, W. E. Krumbein from the department of Geomicrobiology ICBM, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and J. Kronfeld from the department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel-Aviv University supports the antiquity of the patina
Patina
Patina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...
, which in turn, strengthens the contention that the inscription is authentic.
Police investigation
Israeli magazine MaarivMaariv
Maariv is a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel. It is second in sales after Yedioth Ahronoth and third in readership after Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel HaYom. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Maariv saw its market share fall slightly...
correspondent Boaz Gaon reported that Israel Antiquities Authority Theft Unit had focused their attention of the "Jehoash Inscription" as being an expensive bait to defraud a prominent collector in London. Israeli investigators linked a phony business card
Business card
Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company affiliation and contact information such as street addresses, telephone...
and a phone number to a Tel Aviv private eye who admitted that his employee was Oded Golan
Oded Golan
Oded Golan is an Israeli engineer, Israeli artifact collector, and currently on trial for forgery of antiquities. Some of the artifacts he has uncovered have produced great excitement in religious and archaeological circles, and have caused allegations of fraud and forgery...
, the collector who owned the James Ossuary. Oded denied that he was the owner of the stone and claimed that the real owner was a Palestinian antiquities dealer who lived in an area under Palestinian Authority and could not be identified.
A March 19, 2003, article in Maariv told that court had issued a search warrant
Search warrant
A search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....
for Golan's apartment, office and rented warehouse. The search brought forth allegedly incriminating documents and photographs of Golan beside the Jehoash Inscription. Under interrogation, Golan promised to reveal the location of the stone in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Then police made a new search in storage space that Golan had rented in Ramat Gan but had not disclosed to them. There the police found scores of artifacts, ancient seals and other inscriptions in various stages of production along with the tools to create the imitations. Under harsh questioning, Golan admitted that he knew about the Jehoash Inscription and promised to hand it over.
Israel Antiquities Authority commission
Limor LivnatLimor Livnat
is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud, and as the country's Minister of Culture & Sport.-Biography:Born in Haifa, Livnat is the only member of Knesset not to have a secondary education...
, Israeli Minister of Culture, mandated the work of a scientific commission to study the suspicious find, as well as the James Ossuary
James Ossuary
The James Ossuary is a 2,000-year old chalk box that was used for containing the bones of the dead. The Aramaic inscription: Ya'akov bar-Yosef akhui diYeshua is cut into one side of the box...
.
The commission concluded that various mistakes in the spelling and the mixture of different alphabets indicated that this was a modern forgery. The stone was typical to western Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
and areas further west. Patina over the chiseled letters was different from that of the back of the stone and could easily be wiped off the stone by hand. In a press conference in Jerusalem on June 18, 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority commission declared the inscription a modern forgery.
External expert report
An external expert reportExpert report
An expert report is a study written by one or more experts that states findings and offers opinions.In law, expert reports are generated by expert witnesses offering their opinions on points of controversy in a legal case, and are typically sponsored by one side or the other in a litigation in...
, dated September 2005, Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg Germany, threw new light on the controversy. His conclusions contradict those of the Israel Antiquities Authority:
The grainy whitish patina with yellow and grey particles embedded existing prior
to 2005 and documented by the Israel Antiquities Authority as "James Bond" material looks like Meyer
cement used around 1900-1920 at the Acropolis Monuments in Athens and other
places. Unfortunately these materials are presently no longer existing on the
ossuary and have been totally eliminated for reasons unknown.
5) The pictures further document recent (2005) addition of a reddish sticky or
powdery and also rock staining material. In places also scratches and dark (black)
material was recently added. These materials do not exist in photographic
documents prior to 2005.
Professor Krumblein concludes that "Our preliminary investigations cannot prove the authenticity of the three objects beyond any doubt. Doubtlessly the patina is continuous in many places throughout surface and lettering grooves in the case of ossuary and tablet.
On the other hand a proof of forgery is not given by the experts nominated by the Israel Antiquities Authority."
Scholarly opinion
In an article published in 2007, Professor Chaim Cohen of Ben Gurion University wrote, "long-standing position concerning the authenticity of the YI as follows: In order to remove any possible doubt concerning my position as regards the authenticity of the YI, I wish to emphasize at the outset that I do not know whether or not this inscription is genuine. I do contend, however, that it can not be proven philologically to be a modern-day forgery. I would also add that if nevertheless the YI does turn out to be a forgery, then it is a most brilliant forgery in my opinion."Victor Sasson responds that "the sandstone inscription needs not be the first and original record. If the stone itself cannot scientifically be dated to late ninth century B.C.E., then the text could be a later copy of an original inscription... We do indeed have a reference to a possible renovation or restoration of an inscription. The author of the Tell Fakhriyah Assyrian-Aramaic bilingual inscription, dated to the mid-ninth century B.C.E., speaks of a possible future renovation of his
inscription."
Main sources
- Neil Asher Silberman and Yuval Goren, "Faking Biblical History", Archeology magazine, September/October 2003
- Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick, "Indications that the 'brother of Jesus' inscription is a forgery"
- Jonathon Gatehouse, "Cashbox", 'Maclean's' magazine, March 2005
- Sasson, Victor. King Jehoash and the Mystery of the Temple of Solomon Inscription. iUniverse, Paperback, 240 pages, March 28, 2008.
- Sasson, Victor. A response to N.A. Silberman and Y. Goren's article in the form of a letter to Archaeology magazine was not accepted by that magazine (letter date, October 2003). It was eventually published in the listhost.uchicago.edu[ANE] in early March 2004. The letter is also in King Jehoash and the Mystery of the Temple of Solomon Inscription, pp. 90–92.
See also
- Biblical archaeologyBiblical archaeologyFor the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
- List of artifacts significant to the Bible
- Archaeological forgeryArchaeological forgeryArchaeological forgery is the manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. It is related to art forgery....
- Nebra sky disk
External links
- Israel antiquities forgers charged (BBC)
- Museum deems sole First Temple relic a fake (Jerusalem Post)
- Resources on Biblical Archaeology
- Is Oded Golan behind biblical scholarship's biggest fraud ring? Daily Telegraph magazine, May 2005.
- King Solomon's Tablet of Stone Summary and transcript of BBC Horizon tv science documentary (2004).
- Archaeometric analysis of the “Jehoash Inscription” tablet
- The So-Called ‘Jehoash Inscription’: Transcription and Bibliography, by Giuseppe Regalzi