Jehoash Inscription

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 12.

The tablet itself has been condemned by the Israel Museum as forgery, it has been removed from its list of references within the museum's public records. While the artifact in itself is genuinely traceable from antiquity, the engraving on the stone is heavily questioned and rejected by many Israeli and Roman scholars as counterfeit along with the controversial Ivory pomegranate which also came from the same source.

The owner was, purportedly, an anonymous antiquities dealer in Hebron; 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 forger could have used his (Nadav's) 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.

Other scholars support the antiquity of the patina, which in turn, strengthens the contention that the inscription is authentic. This group includes A. Rosenfeld and S. Ilani of 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 of the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel-Aviv University

Text of the inscription

Transcription

1. [אנכי · יהואש · בן · א]
2. חזיהו . מ[
3. הדה . ואעש . את . הב[...]
4. ה . כאשר . נמלאה . נד
5. בת . לב אש . בארץ . ובמד
6. בר . ובכל . ערי . יהדה . ל
7. תת · כסף · הקדשם · לרב · 
8. לקנת · אבן · מחצב · ובר 
9. שם . ונחשת . אדמ . לעשת .
10. במלאכה . באמנה . ואעש
11. את . בדק . הבית . והקרת ס
12. בב . ואת . היצע . והשבכ
13. ם . והלולם . והגרעת . וה
14. דלתת . והיה . הים . הזה
15. לעדת . כי . תצלח . המלאכה
16. יצו . יהוה . את . עמו . בברכה

Police investigation

Israeli magazine Maariv correspondent Boaz Gaon reported that Israel Antiquities Authority Theft Unit had focused their attention on the "Jehoash Inscription" as 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 employer was Oded Golan, the collector who owned the James Ossuary. Golan 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 reported that a 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 then conducted a new search in storage space that Golan had rented in Ramat Gan but had not originally 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 Livnat, Israeli Minister of Culture, appointed a scientific commission to study the Jehoash tablet, 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 of 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.

External expert report

An external expert report, dated September 2005, prepared by 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, "my 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 need 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 archaeology
• List of artifacts significant to the Bible
• Archaeological 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