01x05 - Real or Fake?

[bunniefuu]

Is this going to be the...

... Archaeological Trial of the Century?

I think so. Yes.

The world is watching.

It should.

So basically,

the overall picture is what?

If you could just explain...

...here's a factory,

a ring of forging antiquities,

and selling them...

...into the market?

What exactly is going on?

Exactly that

A ring of people who...

...forge systematically, antiquities,

and market them in Israel and abroad.

Selling them to private collectors,

galleries, museums,

all around the world.

And what kind of monies..

...are we talking about?

We're talking about millions,

millions of dollars. And actually...

...it's not only the money that concerns us here,

it's the contamination...

...of Archaeology as a Science.

And forgery not only of the artifacts...

...but forgery of history.

And that's serious.

[SIMCHA]How serious?

A forged object can change history.

Imagine if someone claimed...

...to find the tomb of Moses in Jordan,

or the bones of Jesus, anywhere.

Such direct contact with the past...

...might reshape our present and future.

But spotting the forger's hand has never been easy.

You see, archaeology reads stones.

And sometimes archaeologists...

...can't agree what the stones are saying.

That's the case with the James Ossuary.

An Ossuary is a stone bone box...

...used at the time of Jesus.

And the side of this one says:

"James, Son of Joseph,

brother of Jesus."

When it surfaced in ...

...some scholars declared this to be...

..the greatest archaeological find of the last century,

the first real physical evidence...

...of a man named Jesus.

But other scholars say-

It's done beautifully.

If it's forged, it's by a genius.

[SIMCHA] If it is a forgery,

this is the man accused of being that genius:

Oded Golan,.

Owner of over pieces of Biblical Archaeology.

One of the world's largest private collections.

His passion for collecting started early.

[ODED] Well I began to collect antiquities...

...at the age of eight.

In later years...

...at the age of ten for example,

I found in mount Hazor, in Tel Hazor,

the oldest dictionary ever found in the world.

At that time I didn't recognize, of course,

that this is the most important inscription...

...found until that time in northern Israel.

[ODED] Later years I travelled a lot...

...to the Old City of Jerusalem...

...and I used to buy antiquities already at that time

And one of the items that I purchased...

...in the early 's was this Ossuary.

This inscription is one of the more important...

...inscriptions that I have in my own collection.

[SIMCHA]But that inscription...

...just might cost Oded Golan everything.

It might be possible, it may be possible.

[SIMCHA]He is about to go...

...on trial for antiquities forgery.

Here are the most serious charges:

. Forging a number of ancient objects,

stone lamps, royal seals, and inscriptions.

. Forging the Jehoash Stone:

An ancient tablet supporting Jewish claims...

...that Solomon's Temple once stood...

...at the Temple Mount.

. The charge grabbing the most headlines:

Forging the James Ossuary inscription.

Thus affecting the history...

...of Jews and Christians around the world.

But if the inscription turns out to be real,

it will be the first physical evidence of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now Oded was indicted...

...as the master forger of the last century.

Not of all time, just the last century.

You see about a hundred years ago...

...a gentleman walked out of the desert.

He swindled kings, queens, press, and public.

And he didn't just forge one or two objects.

He faked an entire culture.

[FEMALE] Real or fake?

[SIMCHA] Archaeology studies the past...

...to illuminate the present.

To understand today's charges against Golan,

we need to dig into the history...

...of Biblical Archaeology.

People have hunted Holy Land souvenirs...

...ever since the fourth century...

...when Saint Helena claimed...

...to have found bits of the true cross.

That was the birth of Biblical relics.

A-sort-of proto-archaeology,

the start of collectors and dealers...

...of supply and demand.

A thousands years later...

...Medieval forgers did a healthy trade in relics.

Like St. Isidore's hipbone,

St. Hyacinth's toenails.

Real Biblical Archaeology, what we recognize...

...as a science-based Biblical Archaeology,

starts in .This happened...

...when a French team discovered the Mesha Stele.

Hello all you people out there in game-land.

Today we are going to play an exciting new game called-

[MALE VOICE] REAL or FAKE? Can you spot the fake?

Stele is either A.

[MALE VOICE] Or B.

Stella!

[SIMCHA] The Mesha Stele...

...describes battles between ancient Israelites and Moabites

It was amazing.

The first external source corroborating a Biblical tale.

The Stele's discovery...

...inspired one of the world's great swindlers.

Moses Shapria.

[SIMCHA] Irit Salmon is a curator at Jerusalem's Tico House.

A museum dedicated to Shapira.

Shapira decided to open a shop of antiquity in the old city

So he opened it...

...with all this excitement on the Mesha Stele.

There's a business here. People like old rocks.

And he opened a shop in the Christian quarter.

But, when he opened the shop,

business didn't go immediately so good.

And then an Arab tourist guide came to him, and said,

"if you want to have tourists, make business with me."

And what is the business?

Everything which we are missing,

we can do during the night.

And so big antiquity forgeries started...

...and everyday, every morning,

whatever he needed was ready.

So they set up a factory at night...

...for the creation of antiquity.

If you think about it, it's the ideal shop.

You can go and order whatever antiquity

you want and they make it to order.

[SIMCHA] His forging methods were simple.

But they worked.

Shapira used to put the pottery in salt.

And also the parchment he put in salt.

To make it look old.

Okay, I could see that's a fake in a minute.

These are very...

...these breasts are not very convincing...

...and the penis, it shouldn't have the testicles,

that's, that's a give-away, ancient times.

Nothing like that was found.

No, they're just wrong.

[SIMCHA] It might look wrong to us now.

But a hundred and fifty years ago...

...Biblical Archaeology was in its infancy.

No one knew what it should look like.

The sexual nature of Shapira's fakes...

...underscores a basic law of forgery.

Give the people what they want.

And sex sells.

Very sexual symbols. But here-

But what's sexual about that?

I don't know.

What's that?

Maybe you sir,you tell me.

I don't know, but he used.

Oh. That looks like a leg.

Yeah, kind of. He used everything.

I mean, he tricked all these archaeologists right?

Yes he did.

And they believed in it.

At that time they really believed in it.

Maybe then they called everything real...

...and now they call everything fakes.

Yes. Sometimes yes.

[SIMCHA] Shapira copied bits...

...of the Stele's ancient Moabite text...

on to pottery. He then sold the forgeries...

...as authentic Moabite artifacts to a host of clients,

including the German Kaiser.

He produced so many of these fakes that-

If I understand you correctly,

they created an entire Moabite culture.

Yeah, basically.

[MALE] Real or Fake?

Can you spot the fake?

A Moabite is either A.

[SIMCHA] Or B.

They bought from Shapira...

..., pieces of moabic clay, ceramic, ,.

They exhibited it in the Berlin museum.

Fake stuff. -Fake stuff.

[SIMCHA] No one knew...

...what a Moabite should look like.

So, Shapria played to his audience.

He was selling to the Kaiser so-

He made the ancient Moabites look German.

He gave them a German moustache.

Yeah. look at that, they look downright Prussian.

And he sold them pieces.

These guys. No wonder these guys loved it!

They said look,

the ancient Moabites look just like us, man.

From this... I don't know how many sold.

But isn't this brilliant too,

if you're going to fake it.

To make it look, the ancient stuff look like...

...the guys you're going to sell it to?

Maybe, I'm not so sure.

Look at that, he gave them Prussian moustaches.

I'm surprised he didn't have a little helmet.

-Yeah.

[SIMCHA] Shapira's scam...

...seems incredible in hindsight.

But remember in Shapira's day,

Biblical Archaeology was new.

No one knew what the real thing should look like.

But how do we spot a fake today?

And I don't care if it was made yesterday, I believe it.

[SIMCHA] Well, you have to learn the forger's secrets.

[FEMALE VOICE] Real or Fake?

[SIMCHA] Fierce debate surrounds the James Ossuary.

Did Oded Golan...

...try to change history with a daring fake?

The academics can't agree...

...and the cops have been called in.

I think it's time for a lesson in spotting a fake.

[SIMCHA] Jerusalem antiquities dealer..

...Gil Chaya has spotted a few.

One of the best fakers in Israel is an Arab...

...that lives near Annapolis.

This is a Samaritan oil lamp with a Menorah over here.

Now with very-

[SIMCHA] That Menorah looks suspicious to me.

[GIL] With very little artifacts with Menorah's...

...they're worth a lot of money.

An oil lamp like this if it was real,

it would be $,.

Ten, ten grand?

$,. Now, why is it fake?

[GIL] How can you tell the Menorah is fake?

The oil lamp is good.

It is an original oil lamp.

[SIMCHA] Really! -Yeah.

[GIL] There is the Menorah which is the-

Seven-branch.

Seven-branch candelabrum, and...

...Gil says this is real. Is this stuff real?

[GIL] Yeah. The whole oil lamp is real.

[SIMCHA]Everything is real.

This stuff has been added.

So, how do you know that?

First of all if you look,

look at it from the side,

it's always curve like this, okay.

Now if you look at it over here, over here it's curved,

it's convex instead of being concave.

Which means that, this was concave also,

but he carved down.

He carved around the Menorah,

you understand. Here this is an original one,

for example, and you see, its concave everywhere.

Oh, I see. This one is up, concave, right.

This one is a little dip in there.

[GIL] Convex yeah.

[SIMCHA] Yeah. Good. bad see.

This one bumps down.

And the point is, somebody carved it down.

It would fool me, boy. It would fool me.

So, this is going for $,

it goes for anything from to hundred dollars.

You put a Menorah on it;

suddenly it's worth grand.

Yeah. [Laughs.]

Somebody tried to sell it to you.

Yeah.

And you said, "I'm no sucker."

You know the second you look at something...

...I can tell it's fake already.

You get a feel for it.

[SIMCHA] As soon as...

...the James Ossuary was shown to the world...

...some said it was real, some said, fake.

Critics said it was unusual,

different from other Ossuaries.

For instance, almost no other Ossuary says "brother of."

That made it an anomaly.

Ed Keall was one of the first to study it

He was a curator at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum..

...when the ossuary made its debut to the world in .

I went back to check in with Keall.

He says academics can't agree...

...whether an anomaly makes or breaks an artifact.

Even a banana split can split the academics.

[SIMCHA] This is a fake one?

[ED] I think yeah, it probably is.

[SIMCHA] You're not sure.

[ED] This reports to be something like...

...th century AD from Iran.

Silver, it's a nice banana split in a bowl.

It's the kind of thing...

...princes and princesses would have.

And probably eat fruit or something like from it.

And then there are various designs on it.

If you took individually took one of those elements...

...this stock creature or a leopard or a palm tree.

Each one of those in isolation...

...you could go to a catalogue...

...or a museum collection and say oh look,

it's exactly like that...

...but the problem is it's the combination which is weird.

And that's what they've done.

They've used the catalogue of the collection...

...that's a legitimate collection as a patent bolt.

But how do we know that?

How do we know there wasn't one guy...

...in ancient times who decided to put it all together.

Well yes indeed that's a problem.

The funny thing is...

...the profession falls into two groups of people.

There's the one group,

when an object appears,

they go to the known catalogues...

...and they look down for exactly a parallel for it.

And they say okay there it is,

there's the parallel, it's genuine.

There's the other school, which is where I fall into.

Say yeah, but the forger has those catalogues too...

...and I look for something that's totally weird...

...and accept it more readily...

...but that other group look at something weird...

...and says there's no power for it, it must be false.

I see, that's very interesting.

So the very eccentricity will lead one to say-

This must be real.

Yeah. A forger usually...

...copies something that is known.

Using that yardstick,

the James for you would be real.

Yeah because, because it's weird.

Because you, there aren't,

the very fact that there aren't...

... other exact versions of it.

But that means that two different academics,

two different diagnosis.

Within this institution there are,

we have fierce arguments over,

whether, and it could-

Over this piece?

Over this piece.

I'm wanting to put it out on display,

and somebody else saying...

...I don't really think that it's real,

and then argue over it.

[SIMCHA] The argument against Oded Golan...

...and the James Ossuary...

...is led by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Or IAA. They police Israel's antiquities market.

A market where objects...

...are guilty until proven innocent.

[FEMALE VOICE] Real or fake?

[buzzer]

[SIMCHA] The IAA investigates Oded Golan...

...and the James Ossuary.

The scientific charges against the Ossuary...

...are technical but easy to understand.

. Patina: A crust that builds up on stone over the years.

Just like rust on metal,

but patina is on stone.

If the patina is new it means the Ossuary is fake.

Scholars can't agree...

...on how old some of the James Ossuary patina is.

. Epigraphy: The study of handwriting in ancient cultures.

Scholars can't agree...

...if one or two hands carved the Ossuary's inscription.

I think its nonsense.

I agree,I agree. It's one hand.

It's one hand, whether forge or authentic,

it is one hand.

[SIMCHA] Some say the all important "brother of Jesus",

was carved by a second hand,

added at a later date and so: a fake.

The IAA leads the charge against Golan.

They established a special...

...scientific committee to study the Ossuary.

The IAA declared and decreed the Ossuary was a fake.

Amir Ganor is a g*n-toting archaeologist.

He works for the IAA.

He investigated the James Ossuary...

...which came from Oded Golan's private collection.

Ganor is suspicious of private collections.

Here's the problem.

Artifacts in the market often have a shady background,

because profit drives the market.

And where there's profit...

...there are thieves and forgers.

[SIMCHA] The IAA classes dealers with robbers.

Why? Well, the law governing dealers...

...is a bit of a contradiction.

First, how do dealers get their merchandise?

How did it get here?

From a legal dig? I doubt it.

Probably some Palestinians who were out of work,

ran around the hillside, found tombs,

took the stuff out,

the Israel Antiquities Authorities chased them,

if they got caught outside they went to jail.

But if they made it through those magic doors,

that's a legal authorized antiquity's dealer.

Once they made it: ah!I made it! It's legal.

It's kosher. You can sell it.

Now that's very frustrating...

...for the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

[SIMCHA] And the IAA...

...likes to share its frustration with the police.

Aren't you frustrated?

If you chase some kid down,

you know and catch him. Then you got him.

And if he gets into the shop and sells it and comes out,

he goes to you and you can't touch him.

Maybe the artifacts are sold...

...and from that point and on they are kosher...

...but the person will be after him in a minute.

Oh, so you can put him in jail...

...and the dealer who's selling his stuff is okay?

Strange, no?

Strange but- -But True?

True.

[laughs] Strange but true!

Well I think the Israeli Antiquities Authority...

...feels some embarrassment...

...and I cannot blame them by the way,

because the law in Israel is quite a ridiculous law.

On one hand all the dealers are working under license,

while the Israeli Antiquities Authority...

...knows for sure...

...that the majority of the items which are sold,

officially under license under supervision,

are coming from illegal excavations.

Yeah, that's the catch of the law...

...which is actually a good catch if you are a digger,

you know, it's not good to dig obviously,

but if it is already dug out...

...and because people will always dig.

Once it is out,

then it may as well stay out in the public eye...

...than to be smuggled out secretly outside of Israel.

So, I think it is a good law.

It is a very good law.

[SIMCHA] Good or bad,

it's a tough law to make-work.

Tough for the cops. Tough for the IAA.

Tough for the dealers.

But is it so tough...

...that Golan is destined to go to jail?

OK, we should talk about this later.

[SIMCHA] Is the James Ossuary...

the greatest archeological find of the last century?

Or the greatest fake...

...in the history of biblical archeology.

[FEMALE VOICE] Tune in next time...