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187| jonathan l. reed Overcoming the James Ossuary and the Legacy of Biblical Archaeology Like the other archaeologists and biblical scholars, I had to see the greatest archaeological discovery ever on display in the Royal Ontario Museum (rom). We were in Toronto for the 2002 annual meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research and Society of Biblical Literature, and we all made the pilgrimage. Coming up the stairs from the Toronto Transit Commission’s metro station, I saw a throng of people and darted to queue at the end of a line snaking around the corner from the museum’s entrance . Hoping that tickets were still available, I began to notice a surprising number of children and families around me. After the line inched around the corner, I was even more surprised. I was not in line for the James Ossuary, but for the McLaughlin Planetarium’s feature exhibit on The Lord of the Rings. That latter exhibit’s sign boasted ‘‘artifacts from New Line Cinema’s blockbuster film,’’ and the children were there for artifacts of magical fantasy. As it turned out, after I skipped that line for the museum’s entrance, I was there for an artifact of archaeological fantasy. Inside the rom, upstairs in the Mediterranean World Features Exhibitions and behind Plexiglas, was the Jewish burial box, or ossuary, whose twenty-letter Aramaic inscription had momentarily made it ‘‘the most important archaeological discovery of Christianity.’’ The inscription read ‘‘James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.’’ Dating to before 70 ce, it would have been the earliest physical evidence of Jesus. Hershel Shanks, the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review who orchestrated the discovery’s initial press conference and exhibit at the museum, had previously arranged for epigraphic experts to authenticate it based on the letters’ style jonathan l. reed 188 and had two geologists confirm its antiquity based on a single and simple chemical test.∞ But several of my colleagues and I were already suspicious: the ossuary had not been found by archaeologists on excavation but had turned up via the shady world of antiquities dealers and collectors. When we noticed that the inscription cut deeper into the stone than two rosettes on the other side, we were more apprehensive. Even behind Plexiglas and at a distance, some letters appeared remarkably clear for a two-millenniaold stone box. Our hunch turned out to be right; the initial ‘‘expert’’ advice only ruled out a clumsy forgery, but this was a crafty forgery. A later two-pronged investigation by the Israel Antiquities Authority convincingly showed that though the box was real, the inscription was fake. The authority’s Theft Unit traced a warehouse to the ossuary’s owner, Oded Golan, which served as a workshop for his other forgeries, including a more amateurish but politically explosive inscription mentioning the Jerusalem Temple. Inside his shop, they recovered dental drills and other tools, chemicals and soils from various archaeological sites, and scores of recently inscribed artifacts in various stages of production. Leads pointed to an Egyptian jeweler as the craftsman, who would later refuse extradition to testify in the owner’s trial, which after three years is still ongoing.≤ Although Golan’s guilt or innocence rests on Israeli legal procedures, antiquities laws, and the tug-of-war over who has the burden of proof, the ossuary’s authenticity has long since been dismissed by every single archaeologist familiar with the case.≥ Shortly after the ossuary’s discovery, a scientific panel was set up by the Israel Antiquities Authority to examine the James-Joseph-Jesus inscription, which concluded that the box was ancient but the inscription modern, cutting through the ancient surface and what geologists call biovermiculation, the bacterial erosion that takes place over centuries and under magnification looks like tiny coral-like pits. The patina, a thin weathering that forms on stone surfaces over time, covered most of the ossuary with a grayish-beige crystalline sheen and a cauliflowerlike appearance. It apparently also covered parts of the inscription ; but microscopic examination revealed that parts around and in the inscription had been carefully coated with a fake patina, and other portions had flaked o√ all too easily and even before examination. The James Ossuary, it would turn out, was a hoax. Most archaeologists suspected as much when it was announced, and none today take it seriously. It does not prove anything. Of course, as a hoax it does not disprove anything, either. [18.218.129.100] Project...

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