Moses Wilhelm Shapira ( he, מוזס וילהלם שפירא; 1830 – March 9, 1884) was a
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
antiquities dealer and purveyor of allegedly forged Semitic
artifacts – the most high profile of which was the
Shapira Scroll.
The shame brought about by accusations that he was involved in the forging of ancient biblical texts drove him to suicide in 1884.
Early life and career
Moses Shapira was born in 1830 to
Polish-Jewish parents in
Kamenets-Podolski, which at the time was part of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n-annexed
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
(in modern-day
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
). Shapira's father emigrated to
Ottoman Palestine
Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...
without Moses. Later, in 1856, at the age of 25, Moses Shapira followed his father to the
Holy Land.
His grandfather, who accompanied him, died en route.
On the way, while in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
, Moses Shapira converted to Christianity
and applied for
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
citizenship, adding Wilhelm to his name. Once in Jerusalem, he joined the
community of Protestant missionaries and converts who met at
Christ Church,
[ and in 1869 opened a store in the Street of the Christians, today's Christian Quarter Road. He sold the usual religious souvenirs enjoyed by pilgrims, as well as ancient pots he acquired from ]Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
farmers. While a patient in the German Lutheran congregation of Deaconess sisters, Shapira met a nurse, Deaconess Rosette Jöckel, who became his wife.
Antiquities dealer and alleged forger
In addition to selling souvenirs to tourists, Shapira also sold a variety of antiquities
Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...
, some of it legitimate, and some of it fake, becoming the pre-eminent antiquities dealer for European collectors.[
Shapira attempted to sell a fake "coffin of Samson" in London, but it was exposed by ]Adolf Neubauer
Adolf Neubauer (11 March 1831 in Bittse, Hungary – 6 April 1907, London) was at the Bodleian Library and reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University.
Biography
He was born in Bittse (Nagybiccse), Upper Hungary (now Bytča in Slovaki ...
after he realized the epitaph had misspelled the name "Sampson."
After one lucrative deal in which he sold 1,700 fake figurines to a Berlin museum, Shapira was able to move outside the old city walls of Jerusalem with his family into an elegant villa on what is today Rav Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook (; 7 September 1865 – 1 September 1935), known as Rav Kook, and also known by the acronym HaRaAYaH (), was an Orthodox rabbi, and the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He is considered to be one ...
Street, today known as Beit Ticho (Ticho House).[
]
Moabite forgeries
Shapira became interested in biblical artifacts after the appearance of the so-called Moabite Stone, also known as the Mesha Stele. He witnessed the huge interest around it and may have had a hand in negotiating on behalf of the German representatives. France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
eventually got the fragments of the original stone, leaving the British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and the Germans rather frustrated.
The squeeze which helped reconstruct the shattered Mesha Stele was taken on behalf of the French scholar and diplomat Charles Clermont-Ganneau
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (19 February 1846 – 15 February 1923) was a noted French Orientalist and archaeologist.
Biography
Clermont-Ganneau was born in Paris, the son of Simon Ganneau, a sculptor and mystic who died in 1851 when Clermon ...
by a Christian Arab painter and ''dragoman'' (tour-guide), Salim al-Khouri, better known as Salim al-Kari, "the reader", a nickname apparently given to him by the Bedouin due to his work with ancient alphabets. Salim soon became Shapira's associate and provided connections to Arab craftsmen who, along with Salim himself, produced for Shapira's shop large amounts of fake Moabite artifacts – large stone-made human heads, but mainly clay objects: vessels, figurines and erotic pieces, generously covered with inscriptions based chiefly on the signs Salim had copied from the Mesha Stele. To modern scholars, the products seem clumsy – inscriptions do not translate to anything legible, for one – but at the time there was little with which to compare them. Shapira even organized an expedition to Moab for potential buyers, to sites where he had Salim's Bedouin associates bury more forgeries. Some scholars began to base theories on these pieces, and the term Moabitica was coined for this entirely new category of "Moabite" artifacts.
Since German archaeologists had not gained possession of the Moabite Stone, they rushed to buy the Shapira Collection ahead of their rivals. Berlin's Altes Museum
The Altes Museum (English: ''Old Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it i ...
bought 1700 artifacts for the cost of 22,000 thalers in 1873. Other private collectors followed suit. One of them was Horatio Kitchener
Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, (; 24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was a senior British Army officer and colonial administrator. Kitchener came to prominence for his imperial campaigns, his scorched earth policy against the Boers, ...
, a not yet famous British lieutenant, who bought eight pieces for the Palestine Exploration Fund. Shapira was able to move to the luxurious Aga Rashid property (modern-day Ticho House), outside Jerusalem's squalid Old City, with his wife and two daughters.
Still various people, including Charles Clermont-Ganneau, had their doubts. Clermont-Ganneau suspected Salim al-Kari, questioned him and in time found the man who supplied him with clay, a stonemason who worked for him, and other accomplices. He published his findings in the ''Athenaeum'' newspaper in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and declared all "Moabitica" to be forgeries, a conclusion with which even the German scholars eventually concurred (cf. Emil Friedrich Kautzsch and Albert Socin
Albert Socin (13 October 1844 in Basel – 24 June 1899 in Leipzig) was a Swiss orientalist, who specialized in the research of Neo-Aramaic, Kurdish and contemporary Arabic dialects. He also made contributions to the geography, archaeology, r ...
, ''Die Echtheit der moabitischen Altertümer geprüft'', 1876). Shapira defended his collection vigorously until his rivals presented more evidence against them. He placed the entire blame on Salim al-Kari, convinced almost everyone that he was just an innocent victim, and continued to do a considerable trade especially in genuine old Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
manuscripts from Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
.
Manuscript affair
In 1870 Shapira sold five scrolls written on leather to Edward Yorke McCauley; these were discovered in 1884 to have been artificially aged.
In 1883 Shapira presented what is now known as the ''Shapira Strips'', a supposedly ancient scroll written on leather strips which he claimed had been found near the Dead Sea. The Hebrew text hinted at a different version of Deuteronomy, including a surprising alternate commandment ("Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: I am God, thy God"). Shapira sought to sell them to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
for a million pounds, and allowed them to exhibit two of the 15 strips. The exhibition was attended by thousands.
However, Clermont-Ganneau
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (19 February 1846 – 15 February 1923) was a noted French Orientalist and archaeologist.
Biography
Clermont-Ganneau was born in Paris, the son of Simon Ganneau, a sculptor and mystic who died in 1851 when Cler ...
also attended the exhibition; Shapira had denied him access to the other 13 strips. After close examination, Clermont-Ganneau declared them to be forgeries. Soon afterward British biblical scholar Christian David Ginsburg
Christian David Ginsburg (, 25 December 1831 – 7 March 1914) was a Polish-born British Bible scholar and a student of the Masoretic tradition in Judaism.
He was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw but converted to Christianity at the age of 15.
...
came to the same conclusion. Later Clermont-Ganneau showed that the leather of the Deuteronomy scroll was quite possibly cut from the margin of a genuine Yemenite scroll that Shapira had previously sold to the Museum.
Following the rejection of the scroll by a large range of scholars, ''Punch'' ridiculed Shapira with a cartoon using anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Shapira fled London in despair, his name ruined and all of his hopes crushed. Having spent some time in a hotel in Bloemendaal
Bloemendaal () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Bloemendaal is, together with Wassenaar, the wealthiest place in the Netherlands.
In October 2015, after persistent problems with the local governa ...
(Netherlands), in hotel Adler in Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
, he shot himself in Hotel Willemsbrug in Rotterdam on March 9, 1884. He was buried in the poor men's part of the Crooswijk cemetery.
The Shapira Strips disappeared and then reappeared a couple of years later in a Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
auction, where they were sold for 10 guineas. Although it is now known that the strips were not destroyed by fire in 1899 as had previously been suggested, the fact that their current whereabouts is unknown leaves room for speculation.
In light of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
in 1947, numerous scholars have called for a re-examination of the forgery charges.[
]
Heritage
Shapira "Moabitica" fakes still exist in museums and private collections around the world but are rarely displayed. By now they have become desirable collectibles in their own right.
The exact location of Shapira's shop on Christian Quarter Road in Jerusalem has now been identified.[ Online reference https://www.academia.edu/2127379/In_Search_of_the_Shop_of_Moses_Wilhelm_Shapira_the_Leading_Figure_of_the_19TH_Century_Archaeological_Enigma]
Personal life
Shapira was married to Rosette Jöckel and had two daughters with her; Maria Rosette Shapira (pen name: Myriam Harry) and Augusta Louisa Wilhelmina Shapira.[
]
In literature
Shapira's life is the subject of the novel ''Ke-heres Ha-nishbar'' (As a Broken Vessel - Keter, Jerusalem, 1984) by Shulamit Lapid
Shulamit Lapid ( he, שולמית לפיד, born 9 November 1934) is an Israeli novelist and playwright.
Biography
Shulamit Giladi (later Lapid) was born in Tel Aviv. She majored in Oriental studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her fath ...
, translated into German as ''Er begab sich in die Hand des Herrn''.
References
*Guil, Shlomo (March 2017)
The Shapira Scroll was an Authentic Dead Sea Scroll
. Palestine Exploration Quarterly. Vol.149, No.1, pp. 6–27.
Further reading
* E. F. Kautzsch and A. Socin, ''Die Echtheit der moabitischen Altertümer geprüft'' (1876)
"Faking it"
- Radio piece on Shapira produced by Israel story podcast for Tablet Magazine
''Tablet'' is an online magazine focused on Jewish news and culture. The magazine was founded in 2009 and is supported by the Nextbook foundation. Its editor-in-chief is Alana Newhouse.
History
''Tablet'' was founded in 2009 with the support ...
, 18 August 2014.
* Nichols, Ross K. (2021)
''The Moses Scroll: Reopening the Most Controversial Case in the History of Biblical Scholarship''
Horeb Press, St. Francisville, LA. .
* Tigay, Chanan, ''The Lost Book of Moses'' (2016)
* Sabo, Yoram (2014)
& I
A documentary film. In the footsteps of Shapira and his scroll.
* Sabo, Yoram (2018). The Scroll Merchant, In Search Of Moses Wilhelm Shapira's Lost Jewish Treasure. (Hebrew) Hakibbutz Hameuchad.
External links
Sutro Library, San Francisco, CA finding aid for Hebraica collection which once belonged to Shapira.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shapira, Moses
1830 births
1884 deaths
Polish Ashkenazi Jews
Archaeological forgery
Converts to Anglicanism from Judaism
Hoaxes in Israel
Suicides by firearm in the Netherlands
19th-century hoaxes
People from Kamianets-Podilskyi
1880s suicides