US museum Dead Sea Scroll collection found to be fakes

[alexander koryagin]

Hi, all!

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US museum Dead Sea Scroll collection found to be fakes

A collection of supposedly valuable Dead Sea Scroll fragments on display
at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC has been found to be fake.

After six months of analysis, experts released a 200-page report
detailing how the fragments were forged - likely made from old shoe leather.

"Each exhibits characteristics that suggest they are deliberate
forgeries," the analysts said in a statement.

The scrolls are a set of ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.

The first of the scrolls were found in caves in Qumran on the western
shore of the Dead Sea in 1947. They were reportedly first discovered by
a young Bedouin shepherd searching for lost sheep. Their discovery is
considered to be among the most significant archaeological finds in history.

The majority are held in a collection by the Israeli government.

The fakes were among the most valuable artefacts in the Museum of the
Bible's collection.

Costing $500m (P 386m), the museum was opened by Evangelical Christian
and billionaire Steve Green in 2017.

Mr Green has not disclosed how much was paid for the 16 fragments but
similar, authentic artefacts may be sold for millions.

"After an exhaustive review of all the imaging and scientific analysis
results, it is evident that none of the textual fragments in Museum of
the Bible's Dead Sea Scroll collection are authentic," said the head of
the investigation, Colette Loll of Art Fraud Insights, in a statement.

Since 2002, previously unknown textual fragments - believed to be
biblical artefacts belonging to the Dead Sea Scroll - surfaced on the
antiquities market.

The Museum of the Bible purchased 16 of these fragments from four
individual private collectors. Thirteen of these were published by a
team of scholars in 2016 "to provide a comprehensive physical and
textual description of the fragments," the analysts wrote. "At the time
of publication, no scientific examination of the Museum's scroll
fragments had been carried out."

"Since publication, scholars have expressed growing concern about the
authenticity of these fragments."

To make convincing fakes, researchers estimate the forgers coated the
scraps with a "shiny amber material... most likely animal skin glue".

The exhaustive report was the product of a six-month effort, including
3D microscopes, infrared spectroscopy and "energy dispersive X-ray
analysis".

Part of the same collection had already been removed from display after
tests in October 2018 found them to be inauthentic too.

These earlier tests were ordered after biblical scholars who examined 13
of the museum's previously unstudied fragments said there was a "high
probability" that a number of them were modern forgeries.

And this was not the first time the museum's owners have faced
controversy. In 2017, Mr Green's company the Hobby Lobby paid a $3m fine
(P 2.3m) and returned thousands of items after the US Department of
Justice accused it of smuggling artifacts from Iraq.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51916849
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Bye, all!
Alexander Koryagin