Is Jehoash Tablet a Fake?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The Jehoash Tablet is a stone bearing an inscription in ancient Hebrew describing the renovation of the First Temple by the Jehoash, King of Judea. If it is authentic, it is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the last century. But for many years, in one of the most complex cases ever to come before an Israeli courts, the state has claimed that it was a fake.
The Jerusalem District Court has ruled that the state failed to prove that the tablet was a fake, paving the way for the defendant, antiquities collector Oded Golan, to be cleared of most of the charges against him. But the state has gone to the Supreme Court to seek possession of the tablet – perhaps because maybe, just maybe, it’s real after all.
The Jehoash Tablet was not the only antiquity Golan was charged with forging. In an unprecedented measure, in 2004 Golan was charged with fabricating and trying to sell a number of fake antiquities, any one of which would have rock the archaeological world had it had been found in the course of an academic excavation.
They included the so-called James ossuary, a limestone box with an inscription implying that it held the bones of the brother of Jesus; as well as a decorated clay lamp from the Second Temple period and a bowl with an inscription in hieroglyphics.
For more go to Haaretz
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