Haran

For those who might care and know of my website, I have updated the "James ossuary" page with news of Golan's indictment on antiquities fraud. It will be interesting to see the evidence that finally comes to light during the court proceedings.

Steven Carr

Could you remind us of your web site please?

Haven't the court proceedings started yet?

When will that happen?

Vorkosigan

Those are deducible from the tracks of artifact sales and from the origins of artifacts now in museums.

Haran

I'm wondering who has access to the tracking of these artifact sales, as these do not seem like details anyone could easily email or call and simply ask for. It seems more likely to me that the details came from an investigation in which the tracking of these sales (among other information) had already been done and may have possibly been leaked.

Also, does this mean, then, that you were incorrect in stating the following in a long ago thread?

This gave me great pause at the time and especially now that things are finally coming to light. If Altman was "inside the police investigation", as you mentioned, then I am still pretty skeptical of their conclusions. I cannot help but be skeptical when totally unfounded accusations and insinuations were even thrown my own way.

Regardless, I look forward to hearing more details of the proceedings in the near future that can hopefully dispell the fog surrounding the whole mess. Hopefully they have more than what has seemingly been leaked to the public.

Just out of curiousity, am I the only person having a problem accessing the website of the IAA below?

http://www.israntique.org.il/

Do they have a new website that I am unaware of? Have they had too many visits from all the news stories? Anyone know what's up?

I was hoping to perhaps find more information there now or in the future, but they may not provide any.... Who knows. I'm not sure exactly where will be the best place to find out.

Vorkosigan

<shrug> I understand you are steamed, but if you get involved in defending an obvious forgery, that's the certain result.

sodium

Is this a case where scholarship worked as it should, with competing ideas brought forward and the right side winning out? Or is the a case where scholarly consensus would have proclaimed this as real, except that there was a police investigation due to Israels strict laws on the buying and selling of artifacts, and Israeli authorities decided to make an official determination? Or is that just part of the process?

Toto

Are you asking if the scholars would have been fooled if the police hadn't stepped in to enforce the law?

As I recall, this whole affair looked like image management and commercial promotion from the start. Shanks played the media like a fiddle and built up excitement and intrigue, and got his book to the presses before most scholars had the time to consider the matter, much less develop a consensus. I don't know if the consensus would have been to accept this even if the police investigation had not intervened.

Vorkosigan

Even if the police had never become involved, once everyone realized that (1) the inscription mimicked an extant one and (2) the IGS hadn't done the right tests, the thing would have been tested and found wanting. Further, Rochelle Altman and others knew from the start that it was a forgery and also knew from past experience of similar forgeries who the forger was, so it isn't like this was going to disappear. They would have been there on the sidelines, eventually to be vindicated.

Vorkosigan

Haran

That's the problem, with the varied scholarly information, it has only been an "obvious forgery" to those who wished it to be so from the beginning. I know you disagree and are probably gloating at the moment, but as someone who does not appear to believe Jesus existed, you had your own motives for not believing in the ossuary from the start. If Jesus did not exist, then there certainly could not be a true artifact with his name on it, right?

To me, it was only an interesting artifact, most probably not actually belonging to THE James and Jesus, and I hated to see it unreasonably condemned from the start without better and more scholarly analysis. You can state that it was an obvious forgery till you're blue in the face, but that does not make it so, and it was obviously not considering the many and varied opinions given by scholars and the level and type of analysis it had to go through before it was finally and unsurely pronounced a forgery by the IAA committee.

Haran

Let's not forget that Dr. Rochelle Altman was one of the first to publish anything halfway formal on the "James ossuary", and she called the inscription a partial fake. Shanks was not the only one who "played the media like a fiddle".

However, if the ossuary is truly a forgery, it may take more than good scholars that are split on every issue. It may take new and previously unavailable information from the police investigation to show that those indicted were truly involved in forgery and evidence to show the ossuary was forged. Perhaps the proceedings will bring forth that information and settle the issue once and for all.