Toto

The Jerusalem Syndrome in Archaeology: Jehoash to James By Yuval Goren

The same story repeats itself. Goren first describes the ostraca, sold by Oded Golan to a well known antiquities collector from London, with text authenticated by Andre Lemaire. They were examined scientifically, and the patina was described as natural, with no evidence of modern materials. They were then featured in BAR as the only material evidence of the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem.

But then some skeptics said they were "too good to be true." Epigraphers described them as possible modern forgeries, with a mishmash of syntax and letter styles, and a more detailed scientific examination suggests that they are modern fakes, that the inscription was modified with a sharp tool, and then a modern patina was applied. The latest discussion of the ostraca in BAR ignores the latest scientific findings.

And so on with a Jerusalem Lamp, the James Ossuary, and the Jehoash Inscription.

rlogan

I kept thinking I was re-reading the same paragraph because the story was identical each time.

This bears on the texts too. You know - the gospels.

leonarde

To me there's at least one significant difference in what is being lumped together here: the ostraca in question were first published in a scholarly publication:In the case of the James ossuary one of the complaints was a rush to judgement on BAR's part: no prior publication in scholarly journals before the article in BAR .

Another point: the references to Jerusalem are hardly remarkable given that: it was the location of the Jewish Temple; it was the seat of the "secular" government, at least during the periods of Jewish self-rule; it dwarfed the populations of most other Jewish towns by a long shot.

I hardly think that archaeologists and other professionals who have lived in and/or visited Israel for years and even decades are susceptible to 'the Jerusalem Syndrome', whatever its status in the mental health epidemiology of Israel.....

Vorkosigan

That's a good point. But the scholarly publication....who was the scholar in question?

You left out...."and that is most likely to attract $$ and attention from collectors and museums." These are top-drawer forgeries by a clever forger who always brings out artifacts that align with Jewish "nationalist" ideals, especially the Temple.

The problem with your statement is that this unseemly lack of suspicion about these fakes does indeed center around the fact that they are Jerusalem-focused artifacts.

The sad fact is that there are certain "nationalist" trends in national archaeologies that make them extremely susceptible to forgery. For example, look up the scandal in Japan, where one man was suspected of infiltrating artifacts in dozens of sites, trying to make the prehistory of Japan older (more nationalist) than it really is. See Scandals in japanese archaeology
This one too. In Israeli archaeology the holy grail is sites linked to the first and second temple. That's a fact, leonarde, that has made Israeli archaeology into a mark for a set of clever forgers.

Vorkosigan

leonarde

Here's what the footnote says:Cheers!

Vorkosigan

I wonder who brought those ostraca to light....

BTW, Goren's paper is completely wonderful. What a fabulous piece of rhetoric, even aside from its devastating arguments.

leonarde

As you probably realize, I'm not in agreement on the point: archaeologists, like anyone else, can be fooled. But that doesn't mean that they weren't first skeptical; Shanks, for example, ----yes, I know he isn't an archaeologist!-----wasn't satisfied with just Lemaire's evaluation of the epigraphy: he consulted a couple of other world-class experts in the paleography/ancient Aramaic fields.

Jerusalem-focused artifacts would make up the bulk of the oldest Jewish religion-related and Jewish state-related artifacts from at least the time of King David to 70 AD. Sure, there's money to be made by playing to the contemporary insatiable hunger for such artifacts but that, in and of itself, doesn't prove that any particular one is a forgery.

Cheers!

Haran

Does it seem like these scholars are reading our recent discussions? Strange that all these articles are popping up lately. Does anyone else know what is going on that would prompt so many articles all of a sudden?

Though it has yet to be named, I'll just say that there is another serious syndrome that seems to affect many scholars. It is one that leads scholars to a certain sort of hyper-skepticism. As an example, I cannot imagine a single biblical artifact ever coming to light that would not be called "too good to be true" by some scholar. Of course it is healthy to question, but to quickly and vehemently deny the authenticity of an artifact and only then seek good reasons to back up one's conclusions can be every bit as detrimental to history as accepting forgeries. There is a balance that must be found. All of us should be suspicious of scholars who quickly and loudly speak out against the authenticity of artifacts (especially before studying them in person or in depth) as well as those scholars who loudly defend authenticity.

Further, I have some quibbles with the article, but specifically with this section:

I have many issues with this particular section. It seems written in such a way as to imply agreement between Dr. Cross and Altman. I have read little agreement between their analyses. Note 21 links to Dr. Cross' reply to Shanks and Lemaire. There, Dr. Cross states: "I have also remarked that I had no palaeographic objection to the inscription. It was indeed a work of great skill. The mixing of cursive and formal characters was particularly clever, a mixture found sometimes on ossuaries, and contrary to some, not evidence of two hands.". I assume that Dr. Goren is referring to the part about the "mixing of cursive and formal characters". However, this did not seem to me to be one of the major points of Altman's analyses. One of her major points (arguably the major point) of her analysis (if we can judge by her "blind as a bat" comment) seemed to be that the inscription was written in two hands. From the above comments, it appears that Dr. Cross rejects this idea.

So much for objectivity. I must admit that I am at a complete loss as to which scholars are worthy of my trust as an informed layperson who simply desires truth, for even those who claim objectivity do not appear to be completely objective.

Vorkosigan

Horse-puppies. "Hyper-skepticism" is just your smear term for insightful thinking that punches holes in archaeological fakes.

The fact is that every day artifacts from the biblical era are excavated all over the Middle East, from pottery to texts. 99% of these go unchallenged. The ones that got called "too good to be true" were clearly aimed at historicist yearning for material support for their mythologies. The same psychological judgments are made every day all over the world about artifacts. For example, people started question the Japanese archaeology finds as "too good to be true" when they turned out to have suspicious national aims. Similarly, there have been some serious critiques of Chinese archaeology's attempts to create an archaeological tradition for the mythical Hsia dynasty. Not to put too fine a point on it, you sound exactly like a Chinese nationalist talking about mainstream archaeological critiques of Chinese archaeology when you complain about "hyper-skepticism."

It is extremely common for critical scholars to evaluate discoveries, theories, and assertions about history based on the social context. NT archaeology is hardly the only field where ideas must pass that hurdle, and hardly the only field where things are criticized for the goals that they serve.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Also, you have way overreacted on Goren:

• Moreover, in a review article in the Bible and Interpretation website, epigrapher Rochelle Altman suggested that by its text and style the inscription may be a modern forgery, including a puzzle of syntax and letter styles from various published epigraphic sources.[20] Such view was later suggested also by Prof. Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University.[21]

Cross says:

"My perverse conclusion was that both were forgeries and I could no longer sit on the fence' in the matter of the ossurary inscription. I now stand wholly and unambiguously with those who believe the ossuary inscription to be a forgery, a good forgery, but a forgery."

This may be the "view" that Goren is referring to -- that the Ossuary is a modern forgery.

Goren may also be citing Cross to show that there is a mix of letter styles. Cross notes: "The mixing of cursive and formal characters was particularly clever..." Both Cross and Altman agree on the essentially heterogenous nature of the inscription. They differ on the import of that, is all. Cross believes that such mixing of letter styles is not unrepresentative (alarm bell: some of the ossuaries that Cross is including in his mental database are probably forgeries as well) but Altman, striking deeper, realized that this mixing was a clue to the nature of the Ossuary. It is natural to cite authorities for agreement on facts even where they disagree on interpretations.

Cross also notes that Shanks lied and misrepresented him, though in a gently remonstrative manner.

"I am also troubled by being quoted in a fashion which makes it appear that I support its authenticity. Hershel knows that I was troubled from the beginning by the badly weathered rosettes on the ossuary, and the unweathered character of the inscription. I have declared in the past that I was sitting on the fence in the matter of its authenticity. Many can testify to this."

But hey, it is OK to mispresent people, accuse scholars groundlessly of being biased, and generally ignore reality. Because we're on the historicist side, so any violation of ethics is OK. Cross is also editing his memory -- the rosettes were not discovered until the thing went to Toronto, so how could he have been "troubled from the beginning?" <sigh>

Also, speaking of forgery psychology, Cross concluded, as I did, that the original IGS "authentication."

"The team was either incompetent or even in collusion with the forger."

No shit. Some of us knew pretty soon. Others took longer.

Vorkosigan