Freethought & Rationalism Archive

leonarde · 01-26-2004, 05:59 AM

Quote:

So when Lupia pointed out that crucial tests were not performed, I knew it had to be a modern forgery.

Again, to me , crucial tests not made on artifact X merely means that the tests should be done, not that it "ha[s] to be a modern forgery". Or for that matter, a forgery of any sort.

To make an analogy: if a doctor fails to perform a test for, say, cancer, that does not mean that 'it has to be that the patient has cancer'. One simply says that more tests are needed.....

Cheers!

leonarde · 01-26-2004, 06:15 AM

I just did a Google search for John Lupia and found this in a footnote of a document by Rochelle Altman:

Quote:

Courtesy of John Lupia, art historian and expert on the materialswho sums up the physical evidence for fraud.. � When I first saw digital photographs of the so-called James Ossuary I immediately knew the inscription was fake without giving a paleographic analysis for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina. Biovermiculation is limestone erosion and dissolution caused by bacteria over time in the form of pitting and etching. The ossuary had plenty except in and around the area of the inscription. This is not normal. The patina consisted of the appropriate minerals but it was reported to have been cleaned off the inscription. This is impossible since patina cannot be cleaned off limestone with any solvent or cleanser since it is essentially baked on glass. It is possible to forge patina but when it is it cracks off. This appears to be what happened with ossuary. With these observations I immediately knew the inscription could not be authentic regardless of what any paleographer might say in favor of it since the physical aspects are prima facia evidence of forgery.

So, if this is indeed what Lupia said (Altman is quoting him) he:

1) immediately knew the inscription was a fake.

2) he did this based on looking at PHOTOGRAPHS (ie not the ossuary itself).

3) he cites the lack of biovermiculation around the inscription (but this account doesn't say whether it's around the ENTIRE inscription or only part of it) AND the alleged lack of patina (which he says had been cleaned off).

4) So if this is accurate, his evaluation was not primarily based on tests NOT done by the Israel Geological Survey.

Cheers!

Haran · 01-26-2004, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by spin
It's not a matter of believing, Haran. It's a matter that either you still don't understand or you don't want to. There is a slightly oblique line following the curvefrom left to near centre; that oblique line meets the downward stroke at about 80 degrees. There is no intention of curvature on the right side. The angle shows the intention of a horn. That is what I've been saying for a while. There is no discrete horn because it requires too much control for the medium, but the intention is clear. You cannot argue that the right side of the top was intended to be curved. The scribe has already shown a willingness to compensate. There is no such willingness here.

You admit there is no discrete horn. I have already said that I see a very slight incline which does not indicate any sort of horn.

The letter is not formal and dropped from the upper scribal line. It is obvious for all to see, so I'm done on this.

Quote:

Much of the following [i.e. information on final PE]I guess is superfluous:

Superfluous?? Ha! You asked me to clarify the Caiaphas inscription for you, Spin!

Superfluous, indeed... Let me remind you that the information about this PE had to do with extended final letters in the middle of an inscription (as you seem to deny that they occur for some reason).

It was entirely relevant to the point I was trying to make. The picture I drew of the Joseph was done by me with no assisting pictures (however, I am not the only one who sees the inscription this way, so you should really drop the "you want to believe stuff" because it makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about).

The PE in the inscription (this picture is about the best on the web unless you can find another) extends as far as the final letter, yet it is in the middle of the inscription! I, then, gave many other examples of final letters found in the middle of inscriptions on other ossuaries in Rahmani that give indication. The fact that you cannot deal with this issue at the moment does not mean it is not a fact (and the book is available to you on Eisenbraun's for a very reasonable price).

Therefore, I maintain that the PE in the James Ossuary is probably just one of these final letters (like other relevant inscriptions in Rahmani's catalog) that happen to be extended in the middle of the inscription. It does not, therefore, have to indicate any sort of "end-of-text" marker.

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(And as you have the literature, what sort of YOD is it at the beginning of this inscription that basically looks like the final ALEF?)

I gave a link to a picture where I separated the letters, specifically for you, Spin. If you look at what I posted, it is not an aleph. The transcription I gave is how I view it and was able to separate the letters and how scholars have viewed it (and why they have been able to refer to it as the Joseph bar Caiaphas ossuary).

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Unfortunately, unless you do it yourself, there's a fair likelihood that you won't be satisfied.

I did do it myself. Funny that you made these kinds of assumptions in another thread and didn't seem to know about the notes of the Masorah parva in the BHS. I do my own work, spin, and check it with scholars, correcting my views when I feel necessary or sticking with my own if I believe my own views instead. You should try reading some of the material yourself as all but one book of what I recommended is available either on amazon or Eisenbraun's website.

Quote:

What makes you think I've ignored it. What I said was this:

The line from the AYIN is obviously not part of the inscription.

Missed that. Ok, fine, since we only have drawings and not a picture, you can dismiss this like you have other information because it bolsters your own claims to do so. However, be aware that the inscription is drawn this way not only in Rahmani but also in Yardeni's Documentary Texts from the Judean Desert. In both works, it is transcribed as an ayin. From the drawings it seems that this stroke is a part of the ayin itself. However, this is only one example of the extended final letter in the middle of an inscription. I gave many other examples, so dismissing this one example doesn't really cause any problems for what I am trying to tell you.

Quote:

I realise that. It was one example of the sort of thing, not the same thing, but the sort of thing I was talking about with the formal HET, ie that the horns are not simply the tops of the downstrokes.

I never said it was unusual per se.

What does that have to do with anything? The formal font of the Uzziah inscription has little relevance to JOI. The HET in the JOI is not "unusual" (the word you used to describe it initially) as I have shown and could be drawn exactly as I have claimed, if we may judge by Yardeni's Book of Hebrew Script. You were simply wrong about the HET.

Quote:

Not so fast. Except with the attempted repeat of the AYIN, which letters are formal in the second half? I need to pin you down, for vagueness hasn't helped this discussion.

There are only four letters in the whole inscription that I would call formal, the bets, resh, and qoph. As is plain from Yardeni's Book of Hebrew script (and actually the formality seen in the Uzziah inscription), there are other letters that should have had serifs. Read the literature first, please.

Quote:

I think you are now being pedantic. There is a clear intention -- intention being what one can expect in the medium we are dealing with -- of a formal style script.

There was also a clear intention in inscription 293 of Rahmani's catalog to produce formal characters (note bets) with serifs, but then (as in the JOI), the script becomes less formal (missing serifs on bets) and droops toward the end. The inscription appears to be a mix of script (just like the JOI). I am not being pedantic, I am simply reading the evidence.

Quote:

I'm not sustaining its impossibility. You are aware that it doesn't fit into the font of the first half at all.

There is no reason to think the script must not have contained a dalet of the form that is in it. There are examples to support it.

Quote:

The text is of a fairly even depth [i.e. with the exception of the "last half"].

Fairly even except for the PE which appears to be incised to about the depth of the aleph. The samekh, especially, but even the waw and yod before it seem at a "lighter depth" than the letters before them (check especially the top photo on my page). This also agrees with what I said about the relative formality of the script pretty much ending at the resh.

Anyways, I've already said that wheathering or material may be the problem. I have also already said that there are other ossuaries with similar varied depths within the inscription. This simply cannot be used as any sort of determining factor.

Quote:

You continue to impute things that are contrary to photos of the inscription.

Quite on the contrary, Spin.

Quote:

The formal stops with the PE. The irregular starts with the ALEF. [/b]

The PE does not appear to be formal. Even if you unreasonably claim it is (after admitting that it is not discrete), you still must deal with the fact that the PE drops to the level of the supposed "second half" of the inscription and appears to incised to about the same depth as those letters (at the least, it is not the same depth as the letters of the supposed "first half" of the inscription). You have not successfully dealt with these issues which show, quite convincingly, that the inscription does not abruptly change after the PE (the change starts before, as it progressively changes from right to left).

Quote:

You are kidding me. The YOD has a tittle indicating a serif.

I do not believe that is a serif. However, if you believe it is, then you must account for the fact that this disrupts the supposed continuity of the "first half" since there are two yods and only one of them has a supposed serif. Further, if the yod has a serif, then according to the texts I've read, the waw should also have a serif.

Quote:

What's your problem with the AYIN? It's fairly clear to me.

I thought I made that clear. If you are maintaining that the supposed "first half" of the inscription is formal, then according to the texts I have read (especially Yardeni), it seems that the ayin would have also had serifs at the top of its arms (check the Uzziah inscription to see that ayins can have serifs in a formal script, if you don't believe me for some reason). So, the ayin is clear, but it does not seem consistent with the other four letters with serifs.

Quote:

You have attempted to say that the first half of the text is not consistent with its font. You have failed to get beyond saying it, as the photo doesn't support you.

What? All I can do is say it, show pictures and give examples as I have done. I have shown it with plenty of examples and specific information from relevant texts. Certainly, all I've seen against the continuity of the inscription is the unsupported analyses of you, Altman, and Chadwick.

Quote:

The shape of the DALET is still unexplainable in the context of the two BETs and the RESH which are of the one type and the DALET should be of a similar form to the RESH or the BET without its base horizontal. If the scribe had managed those BETs and the RESH, there would have been no extra effort for a similar DALET.

This is just not true, but the only way you'll know that this is possible in an inscription is to find and look at other examples of ossuary inscriptions in Rahmani.

Quote:

The ALEF is neither the horned lambda shape nor an X-shaped ALEF.

Yet there are examples in the appropriate time frame. One of the best examples I've seen is the repetition (~5x on this one ossuary, I believe) of an aleph of very similar form to that on the JOI in Rahmani, number 803 (or 797).

There is an example of a samekh with a serif on 820.

Quote:

The best you've done is to complain about my lack of access to books...

Spin, I have presented relevant information from respected sources, not to mention picture examples and descriptions. Give me a break. If you can't deal with the sources and point to paleographical information from these sources (which you might find correct you). The only thing I have seen from you is assertion. I'm afraid that you've given a good description of your own participation in this discussion rather than mine, considering you've given no examples from other ossuaries (that I've not already presented) and no scholarly information supporting the many untenable claims.

Quote:

As you seem to like other people's opinions over the forms of the letters themselves, you should be aware that almost no scholars would agree with you over the shapes of these letters -- if you look at the range of opinions on the net.

I do not look to other people. I do my own analysis (as you claimed you do). I refer to scholars in the appropriate field, not to you, Altman, or some of the other people that popped up on the web about the same time. I do not know much about Chadwick, but I do not believe he is published in semitic paleography. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

I think I shall bow out of the discussion at this point as I do not think we can take it any further, productively. I've expressed my opinion on the inscription and given plenty of examples and information from texts of scholars in the relevant field of study, in return I have only seen speculation and claims unsupported by texts of scholars in the relevant field. The discussion cannot progress without examing the examples and addressing points with relevant information from the appropriate scholarly texts. As I said, all but one of the texts I've mentioned are available for purchase on the web (if there is no access to a library).

Vorkosigan · 01-26-2004, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
Again, to me , crucial tests not made on artifact X merely means that the tests should be done, not that it "ha[s] to be a modern forgery". Or for that matter, a forgery of any sort.

To make an analogy: if a doctor fails to perform a test for, say, cancer, that does not mean that 'it has to be that the patient has cancer'. One simply says that more tests are needed.....

Cheers!

Right. I am not saying that this perspective is incorrect. But I had a different perspective on the issue, probably because I enjoy reading about forgery, and probably because I have collected artifacts myself. Besides, I figured it was probably a forgery for other reasons. The testing problems showed that it was a modern, as opposed to an ancient, forgery. That's all.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan · 01-26-2004, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
I just did a Google search for John Lupia and found this in a footnote of a document by Rochelle Altman:
So, if this is indeed what Lupia said (Altman is quoting him) he:
1) immediately knew the inscription was a fake.
2) he did this based on looking at PHOTOGRAPHS (ie not the ossuary itself).
3) he cites the lack of biovermiculation around the inscription (but this account doesn't say whether it's around the ENTIRE inscription or only part of it) AND the alleged lack of patina (which he says had been cleaned off).
4) So if this is accurate, his evaluation was not primarily based on tests NOT done by the Israel Geological Survey.
Cheers!

I think you misread him. He cited the lack of a biovermiculation test by the IGS.

I do not recall when this post was made, but you can search the XTALK archives to find out. Altman's quote is accurate.

Vorkosigan

leonarde · 01-26-2004, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
I just did a Google search for John Lupia and found this in a footnote of a document by Rochelle Altman:
So, if this is indeed what Lupia said (Altman is quoting him) he:
1) immediately knew the inscription was a fake.
2) he did this based on looking at PHOTOGRAPHS (ie not the ossuary itself).
3) he cites the lack of biovermiculation around the inscription (but this account doesn't say whether it's around the ENTIRE inscription or only part of it) AND the alleged lack of patina (which he says had been cleaned off).
4) So if this is accurate, his evaluation was not primarily based on tests NOT done by the Israel Geological Survey.
Cheers!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think you misread him. He cited the lack of a biovermiculation test by the IGS.

How misread him? In the quotation I supplied (ie the one that Altman gave) threre's no mention of tests NOT done, no mention of the Israeli Geological Survey whatsoever. To repost that (with my emphasis):

Quote:

� When I first saw digital photographs of the so-called James Ossuary I immediately knew the inscription was fake without giving a paleographic analysis for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina. Biovermiculation is limestone erosion and dissolution caused by bacteria over time in the form of pitting and etching. The ossuary had plenty except in and around the area of the inscription.

So the judgement (that the inscription was "fake") was immediate. It was based on eyeballing digital photos of the ossuary and determining thereby that the biovermiculation and patina were absent or of the wrong sort in the area of the inscription......Lupia himself did no tests (and it isn't even clear that he ever saw the ossuary in the flesh)...

Now perhaps subsequently he wrote about inadequate testing by the Israel Geological Survey but that was not the original basis of his determination that the inscription was a fake. At least according to his own (above) account....

Cheers!

leonarde · 01-26-2004, 04:47 PM

Something I came across today:
http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbbreakingflawed.html

The conclusion of the above:

Quote:

For the moment, all we can say is that the oxygen isotope results are equally consistent with two possible interpretations:

1. The inscription is a modern forgery that was coated with a faked patina; OR

2. The inscription is ancient but was cleaned in modern times with the coating produced either inadvertently as a result of cleaning or intentionally to disguise the cleaning.

The IAA�s acceptance of the first possibility above is not required by the currently available data.

Cheers!

Vorkosigan · 01-26-2004, 05:23 PM

Leonarde --

Shanks of Bib Arch has a financial interest in the Ossuary. He helped write a book about it, got a huge advance, and now has seen his profit possibilities plummet. He simply went out and got an expert who was willing to say whatever he needed said.

The oxygen isotope ratio cannot be affected by cleaning with water. Patina is, as Lupia notes, hard as baked on glass. Give an account of how cleaning with water can remove the patina and alter its isotope ratio (you will note that Harrell does not).

Further, cleaning cannot alter the microfossils. The microfossils in the patina over the inscription were different from those elsewhere on the box. The implications are obvious.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan · 01-26-2004, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde
[B]How misread him? In the quotation I supplied (ie the one that Altman gave) threre's no mention of tests NOT done, no mention of the Israeli Geological Survey whatsoever. To repost that (with my emphasis):

Of course. She probably left out most of what he wrote. Further, this is not his only post on the topic. YOu're right, you weren't misreading, I was confusing several posts.

Quote:

Now perhaps subsequently he wrote about inadequate testing by the Israel Geological Survey but that was not the original basis of his determination that the inscription was a fake. At least according to his own (above) account....

Cheers!

Yes, there is another one.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan · 01-26-2004, 06:05 PM

Lupia's post on the patina is here

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/11401

and dates from Nov 3.

Moreover, when I first saw digital photographs of the
so-called James Ossuary I immediately knew the
inscription was fake without giving a paleographic
analysis for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina.
Biovermiculation is limestone erosion and dissolution
caused by bacteria over time in the form of pitting
and etching. The ossuary had plenty except in and
around the area of the inscription. This is not
normal. The patina consisted of the appropriate
minerals but it was reported to have been cleaned off
the inscription. This is impossible since patina
cannot be cleaned off limestone with any solvent or
cleanser since it is essentially baked on glass. It
is possible to forge patina but when it is it cracks
off. Sound familiar? With these observations I
immediately knew the inscription could not be
authentic regardless of what any paleographer might
say in favor of it since the physical aspects preclude
forgery. Besides, at this point any paleographic
analysis would have been superfluous.

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01-26-2004, 05:23 PM	#98
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Leonarde -- Shanks of Bib Arch has a financial interest in the Ossuary. He helped write a book about it, got a huge advance, and now has seen his profit possibilities plummet. He simply went out and got an expert who was willing to say whatever he needed said. The oxygen isotope ratio cannot be affected by cleaning with water. Patina is, as Lupia notes, hard as baked on glass. Give an account of how cleaning with water can remove the patina and alter its isotope ratio (you will note that Harrell does not). Further, cleaning cannot alter the microfossils. The microfossils in the patina over the inscription were different from those elsewhere on the box. The implications are obvious. Vorkosigan

01-26-2004, 06:05 PM	#100
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Lupia's post on the patina is here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/11401 and dates from Nov 3. Moreover, when I first saw digital photographs of the so-called James Ossuary I immediately knew the inscription was fake without giving a paleographic analysis for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina. Biovermiculation is limestone erosion and dissolution caused by bacteria over time in the form of pitting and etching. The ossuary had plenty except in and around the area of the inscription. This is not normal. The patina consisted of the appropriate minerals but it was reported to have been cleaned off the inscription. This is impossible since patina cannot be cleaned off limestone with any solvent or cleanser since it is essentially baked on glass. It is possible to forge patina but when it is it cracks off. Sound familiar? With these observations I immediately knew the inscription could not be authentic regardless of what any paleographer might say in favor of it since the physical aspects preclude forgery. Besides, at this point any paleographic analysis would have been superfluous.

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