|
Archaeological forgery is a manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. It is related to art forgery. Art forgery means creating and especially selling works of art that are falsely attributed to be work of other, usually more famous artists. ...
A string of archeological forgeries have usually followed news of prominent archeological excavations. Historically, famous excavations like those in Crete, Valley of the Kings in Egypt and Pompeii have caused the appearance of a number of forgeries supposedly spirited away from the dig. Those have been usually presented in the open market but some have also ended up in museum collections and as objects of serious historical study. Crete, sometimes spelled Krete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ...
Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings, or Wadi el-Muluk (وادي الملوك) in Arabic, is a valley in Egypt where tombs were built for the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties. ...
Ruins in Pompeii The city of Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many smaller places around the Bay of Naples, were Roman municipalities destroyed during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The eruption was described by Pliny the Younger (see below), whose uncle Pliny the Elder died...
In recent times, forgeries of pre-Columbian pottery from the South America have been very common. Other popular examples include Ancient Egyptian earthenware and supposed ancient Greek gold. There have also been paleontological forgeries like archaeoraptor. Archaeoraptor was a fossil believed to be an intermediary between dinosaurs and birds, but proved to be an archaeological forgery. ...
Motivations
Most of the archaeological forgery is made for reasons similar to art forgery - for money. The monetary value of an item that is thought to be thousands of years old is higher than the similar one sold as a souvenir.
However, archaeological or paleontological forgers may have other motives; they may try to manufacture proof for their point of view, favorite theory or to gain increased fame and prestige for themselves. If that is to create "proof" for religious history, it is pious fraud. A pious fraud is a term used by skeptics for people who perform fraud in religion (for example, a pious fraud fakes miracles or psychic surgery) because of a sincere belief that the end justifies the means in religious matters. ...
Detection Investigators of archaeological forgery rely on the tools of archaeology in general. Since the age of the object is usually the most significant detail, they try to use carbon dating or neutron activation analysis to find out the real age of the object. Radiocarbon dating is the use of the naturally occurring isotope of carbon-14 in radiometric dating to determine the age of organic materials, up to ca. ...
In chemistry, neutron activation analysis is a technique used to very accurately determine the concentrations of elements in a sample. ...
Criticisms of antiquities trade Some historians and archaeologists have strongly criticized antiquities trade for putting profit and art collecting before the scientific accuracy and veracity. This, in effect, favors the archaeological forgery. Allegedly some of the items in prominent museum collections are of dubious or at least of unknown origin. Looters that rob archaeologically important places and supply the antiquities market are rarely concerned about things like exact dating and placement of the items. Antiquities dealer may also embellish a genuine item to make it more saleable. Sometimes trader may even sell items that are attributed to nonexistent cultures. A historian is a person who studies history. ...
Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...
As is the case with art forgery, scholars and experts do not always agree on the authenticity of particular finds. Sometimes an entire research topic of a scholar may be based on finds that are later suspected as forgeries.
Known archaeological forgers Fujimura Shinichi (b. ...
Brigido Lara (b. ...
Moses Shapira (1830-1884) was a Jerusalem antiquities dealer and purveyor of fake biblical artifacts. ...
Known archaeological forgeries |
Feeds |
Contact