June 2011, Cover Stories, Daily News

Ancient James Ossuary and Jehoash Tablet Inscriptions May Be Authentic, Say Experts

By Michael Gordon   Wed, Aug 31, 2011

After five long years, the high profile trial of accused Israeli forgers Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch was finally over, but not without raising a multitude of testimony statements from expert witnesses for both prosecution and defense concerning the innocence or guilt of the two defenders and the authenticity of the two famous ancient antiquities that made headlines in newspapers and journals during the first decade of the 21st century. The expert opinion of most of the scientists who have examined the inscriptions on the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet : They may be real, after all. But the final decision on the case has yet to be made by the court, which concluded on October 3, 2010 with a pending verdict.

Hanging in the balance are a number of other issues and interests, including the credibility of certain expert members of the Israel Antiquities Authority and officials who had conducted initial investigations, certain members of the Israel Geological Survey, the Israel antiquities market, and the conduct or process of determining the authenticity of ancient artifacts.

The story began at an October 21, 2002 Washington press conference co-hosted by the Discovery Channel and the Biblical Archaeology Society, when the existence of a 2,000-year-old ossuary was announced, featuring on its side an inscription that provided the oldest known archaeological record of Jesus of Nazareth. (An ossuary is a stone box, often made of limestone, that was used by the Jewish inhabitants of 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D. Jerusalem to inter the bones of deceased family members). The inscription on this box read Ya'akov bar-Yosef akhui diYeshua, which in English translates as "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus", originally translated by André Lemaire, a renowned Semitic epigrapher. The announcement created a media stir that reverberated worldwide and set in motion a chain of events which, like opening Pandora's box, became a story that acquired far greater proportions than the initial players had initially intended.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The "James Ossuary", showing the inscription on its side. This bone box was purportedly found near Silwan in the Kidron Valley of Jerusalem and later purchased by Oded Golan. The bones of the deceased were typically interned in such stone boxes during the 1st century B.C. through most of the 1st century A.D. by Jewish families who lived in the Jerusalem area during that time. In 62 AD, James, the brother of Jesus, was stoned and thrown from the Temple Mount walls by opponents. Based on Christian tradition, his body was laid in a rock-cut tomb in the Kidron valley and then one year later re-interned in an ossuary. A monastery and chapel were built above his burial location and then, during a Muslim invasion in the 7th century, Armenian monks removed his bones and placed them under an alter at the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion. Courtesy Paradiso, Wikimedia Commons.

(Above and below) The inscription on the side of the ossuary which reads "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". Courtesy Paradiso, Wikimedia Commons. Below is derivative work from above, courtesy AnthonyonStilts, Wikimedia Commons. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After a series of initial investigations by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2003 that led to a determination that the James Ossuary was a forgery, including other investigations, Oded Golan, collector and owner of the box, was charged with 44 counts of forgery, fraud and deception. Four other antiquities dealers were also charged, including well-known collector and antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch. Proceedings began in the Jerusalem District Court in 2005. Three of the accused were dismissed during the early days of the trial, while Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch continued on as defendants.  Along with the James Ossuary, the Jehoash Tablet (pictured left) , another famous artifact owned by Golan, was included in evidence. The Jehoash Tablet is an ancient stone tablet purportedly dated to the 9th century and containing an inscription claimed to document renovations of the First Temple (built by Solomon) under the auspices of the Judean King Jehoash, also known from the biblical historical account.

Recently, a March, 2011 statement written by Oded Golan summarizing the testimonies and opinions of experts and scientists who testified at the trial was released by the Biblical Archaeology Society to the readership of the Biblical Archaeology Review, the organization's trademark publication. The document summarized statements made in proceedings that included 116 hearings, 138 witness testimonies, and over 12,000 pages of transcripts. The witness list from which the summary draws its information consists of 52 experts in fields such as archaeology, epigraphy, Semitic languages, forensic science, stone patina, archaeometry, geology, geochemistry, bio-geology, and carbon-dating. According to Golan's summary, the vast majority of the expert witness testimonies support or at least do not refute the authenticity of both the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet.

Much of the testimony centered on the analysis of the ancient patina covering the surfaces of the subject artifacts, including that found within the grooves of the inscriptions made on the artifacts. The patina in the case of these stone artifacts refers to a discoloring or tarnish that occurs on the surface of the stone due to bio-organic and/or chemical processes that naturally take place on the stone when it is exposed over long periods of time. It is what causes the "aged" appearance of the artifact.  Regarding the James Ossuary, a number of the world's leading authorities on patina analysis concluded in testimony that there was no basis to doubt the authenticity of the artifact or the inscription made on it. Summarizes Golan:   

"Neither the prosecution nor the IAA presented even a single witness who was an expert on ancient stone items, or patina on antiquities and who ruled out the authenticity of the inscription or any part of it. On the contrary, the findings of all the tests, including those of prosecution witnesses [Yuval] Goren and [Avner] Ayalon, support the argument that the entire inscription is ancient, the inscription was engraved by a single person, and that several letter grooves contain traces of detergent/s that covers the natural varnish patina that developed there over centuries, and was partially cleaned (mainly the first section), many years ago."[1]

Moreover, Orna Cohen, a well-known archaeologist and chemist and senior antiquities conservator for the IAA and Israeli museums who was initially assigned by the IAA to examine the inscription in 2003, "testified that she found natural bio-patina in several letter grooves of the words "brother of Jesus" (het, yod, shin, ayin"ח", "י", "ש" "ע "), which had developed at the bottom or on the sides of the grooves over centuries, and in some of these letters she found that the bio-patina that appeared continuously gliding down from the surface of the ossuary into the depths of the grooves. She stated that it was consequently possible to determine with certainty that the words "brother of Jesus" had been engraved in ancient times".[1]

Regarding the Jehoash Tablet and inscription, the findings of various leading experts show that the "patina of this kind could not have developed on the Tablet and inside the groove letters in a period of less than 100 years, and it more probably developed over a period of several thousand years".[1]  A particularly revealing development arose as it also became clear at the trial that after the IAA received the Tablet, it became broken along a diagonal fracture because of negligent handling by police officers, making it possible for experts to examine the inner section of the stone and along the break. After examining this section of the inscription, the patina and the fracture line itself, the stone experts all "unequivocally indicated that the inscription is covered in original varnish patina (biogenic patina of a biological origin, resulting from the extensive activities of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, etc., on the Table and in the letter grooves). The patina is of varying thicknesses (very thin in some parts and very thick in other parts) and there is no doubt that the patina that envelopes the Tablet and its lowered frame and also penetrates into many of the letter grooves – developed slowly over a period of no less than 100 years, and possibly several thousands of years".[1]  The case for the Jehoash Tablet inscription's authenticity was becoming more and more defensible.  

Examining the two artifacts from a paleographic, linguistic, and philological perspective, prominent scholars with expertise in ancient script and language have also come forward with statements that support the authenticity of the artifacts and their inscriptions, or at least support the contention that they cannot be solidly proven to be forgeries. Testimonies to this effect were heard from well-known and highly regarded scientists and scholars such as Roni Reich, Gabriel Barkay, André Lemaire, Hagai Misgav, Shmuel Ahituv, Yosef Naveh, and Esther Eshel. Indeed, speaking about the James Ossuary inscription, among the testimonies was that of Ada Yardeni, a paleographer and researcher at the Hebrew University and considered a household name in the field.  Even as she served as a witness for the prosecution at the trial, she stated that her examination of the inscription in 2002 left her with no doubt that it was of ancient origin, and that it was inscribed by a single individual.  "If this is a forgery," she said, "I quit."[1]

The authenticity of the James Ossuary and Jehoash Tablet aside, the verdict on Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch still remains to be decided. But it seems clear, assuming the summary of Oded Golan is accurate, that the two artifacts may possibly have redeemed their place in the archaeological record as tangible evidence of times, people, and places that most of us have only read about in texts that are to this day still regarded by three major world religions as sacred.

Details of Oded Golan's commentary on the expert witnesses of the case can be read at the Biblical Archaeology Review website. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Oded Golan, The Authenticity of the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet Inscriptions – Summary of Expert Trial Witnesses, March, 2011. 

By Michael Gordon