Oded Golan

Oded Golan (Hebrew: עודד גולן‎) (b. 1951 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli engineer, Israeli artifact collector, and currently on trial for forgery of antiquities. Some of the artifacts he has uncovered have produced great excitement in religious and archaeological circles, and have caused allegations of fraud and forgery. He was accused of faking the James Ossuary and other items in order to trap gullible collectors. In December 2004, he was indicted with four other defendants and accused of being at the center of an international antiquities forgery ring.

Background

The son of an engineer and a microbiologist, Golan served in the Israel Defence Force before studying engineering at Technion. He later went on to work in a variety of high-technology roles, before founding his own informatics company.

Golan also has a keen interest in archeology and antiquities. Golan and those working with him have found a number of remarkable ancient artifacts, the discovery of which have excited great controversy. These include the Jehoash Inscription, an inscribed tablet detailing repairs done to the Temple of Solomon in the reign of King Jehoash, and (in 2002) the James Ossuary, an ossuary with an inscription which (if it is genuine) supports the historicity of Jesus.

Today there is a scholarly and expert debate concerning the authenticity of Golan's findings, with some deriding them as obvious forgeries and some, including international experts stating there is no doubt the artifacts are authentic. Following investigations by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israeli police announced in December 2004 that they intended to charge Golan with crimes including fraud and forgery.

According to the BBC, when the police took Oded Golan into custody and searched his apartment they discovered a workshop with a range of tools, materials, and half finished 'antiquities'. This was evidence for an operation of a scale far greater than they had suspected. Investigators have established that collectors around the world have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for artefacts that came through Oded Golan's associates. Dozens of these items have now been examined and all have been revealed to be forgeries. Police now suspect that artefacts made by the same team of forgers have found their way into leading museums around the world.

The documentary film The History Merchants covered investigations into Golan and the provenance of his finds. The film alleged Golan (working with a team of people, including an expert in ancient semitic languages and an artisan) had produced a number of forged artifacts for sale on the religious antiquities market. Oded Golan describes the film as "rumor", saying it contained no real evidence and was part of a "media circus". He claims the IAA and police investigation was mishandled and persecutory. Professor Wolfgang Krumbein, an international expert in the field of ancient patina stated in his report that the tools the IAA used to examine the artifacts were unfit to make such allegations and that tests in a modern lab have proven the authenticity of at least the James Ossuary.^{[citation needed]}

In 2004, "Horizon" aired King Solomon's Tablet of Stone on the BBC. This program aired allegations of a forgery and fraudulent activity of Golan.

Indictment and Trial

On December 29, 2004, Golan was indicted in an Israeli court along with three other men - Robert Deutsch, an inscriptions expert who has lectured at the University of Haifa; collector Shlomo Cohen; and antiquities dealer Faiz al-Amaleh. They are accused of being part of a forgery ring that had been operating for more than 20 years. Golan denies the charges against him. Faiz al-Amla, a Palestinian dealer from the village of Beit Ula in the Hebron Hills was convicted and sentenced to a six-month jail term as part of a plea bargain. Since then, charges were dropped against two of the men, leaving only Golan and Deutsch. As of June 2009, Golan is still on trial.

Further reading

• Nina Burleigh, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery In The Holy Land (HarperCollins, 2009). ISBN 978-0-06-145845-3

External links

• Alleged forger of Holy Land antiquities held 23/07/2003, Haaretz,
• "Written in Stone," David Samuels, A Reporter at Large, The New Yorker, April 12, 2004, p. 48
• Oded Golan's refutation of the documentary's claims
• Review of The History Merchants
• UK Daily Telegraph investigative article (May 2005)
• The art of authentic forgery by Nadav Shragai, 14/04/2008 Haaretz,
• King Solomon's Tablet of Stone