Archaeological forgery is the 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 is the creating and selling of works of art which are falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged art ...

. A string of archaeological forgeries have usually followed news of prominent

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

s. Historically, famous excavations like those in

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

, the

Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings ( ar, وادي الملوك ; Late Coptic: ), also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ar, وادي أبوا الملوك ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

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. In recent times, forgeries of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

pottery from South America have been very common. Other popular examples include Ancient Egyptian

earthenware Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ce ...

and supposed ancient Greek cheese. There have also been paleontological forgeries like the

archaeoraptor "Archaeoraptor" is the informal generic name for a fossil chimera from China in an article published in ''National Geographic'' magazine in 1999. The magazine claimed that the fossil was a " missing link" between birds and terrestrial therop ...

or the

Piltdown Man The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains ...

skull.

Motivations

Most archaeological forgeries are made for reasons similar to art forgeries – for financial gain. The monetary value of an item that is thought to be thousands of years old is higher than if the item were sold as a souvenir. However, archaeological or paleontological forgers may have other motives; they may try to manufacture proof for their point of view or favorite theory (or ''against'' a point of view/theory they dislike), or to gain increased fame and prestige for themselves. If the intention is to create "proof" for religious history, it is considered

pious fraud Pious fraud is used to describe fraud in religion or medicine. A pious fraud can be counterfeiting a miracle or falsely attributing a sacred text to a biblical figure due to the belief that the " end justifies the means", in this case the end of in ...

Detection

Investigators of archaeological forgery rely on the tools of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

in general. Since the age of the object is usually the most significant detail, they try to use

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

neutron activation analysis Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is the nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on atomic ...

to find out the real age of the object.

Criticisms of antiquities trade

Some

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

s and archaeologists have strongly criticized the

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 ...

trade for putting profit and

art collecting A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

before scientific accuracy and veracity. This, in effect, favours the archaeological forgery. Allegedly, some of the items in prominent museum collections are of dubious or at least of unknown origin. Looters who rob archaeologically important places and supply the antiquities market are rarely concerned with exact dating and placement of the items. Antiquities dealers may also embellish a genuine item to make it more saleable. Sometimes traders may even sell items that are attributed to nonexistent cultures. As is the case with art forgery, scholars and experts don't 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

Alceo Dossena Alceo Dossena (1878–1937) was an Italian sculptor. His dealers marketed his creations as originals by other sculptors. Biography Dossena was born in 1878 in Cremona, Italy. He was a talented stonemason and sculptor, and was so skilled at dupl ...

(1878–1937), 19th century Italian creator of many Archaic and

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

statues *

Shinichi Fujimura is a Japanese archaeologist who claimed he had found a large number of stone artifacts dating back to the Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic periods. These objects were later revealed to be forgeries. Success Fujimura was born in Kami, Miy ...

(b. 1950), Japanese amateur archeologist who planted specimens on false layers to gain more prestige * Brigido Lara (b. 1939-1940), Mexican forger of pre-Columbian antiquities *

Shaun Greenhalgh Shaun Greenhalgh (born 1961) is a British artist and former art forger. Over a seventeen-year period, between 1989 and 2006, he produced a large number of forgeries. With the assistance of his brother and elderly parents, who fronted the sal ...

(b. 1961), a prolific and versatile British forger, who, with the help of his family, forged Ancient Egyptian statues,

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

silverware and Celtic gold jewelry among more modern artworks. Arrested in 2006 attempting to sell three Assyrian reliefs 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 ...

. * Edward Simpson (b. 1815, 1874), Victorian English forger of

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

flint tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

. He sold forgeries to many British museums, including the

Yorkshire Museum The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy. History The museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Soc ...

and the British Museum *

Moses Wilhelm Shapira Moses Wilhelm Shapira ( he, מוזס וילהלם שפירא; 1830 – March 9, 1884) was a Jerusalem antiquities dealer and purveyor of allegedly forged Semitic artifacts – the most high profile of which was the Shapira Scroll. The shame bro ...

(1830–1884), Ukrainian purveyor of fake biblical artifacts * Tjerk Vermaning (1929–1986), Dutch amateur archaeologist whose

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

finds were declared forgeries *

James Mellaart James Mellaart FBA (14 November 1925 – 29 July 2012) was an English archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was expelled from Turkey when he was suspected of involvem ...

(1925–2012), English

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and author who is noted for his discovery of the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

settlement of

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. After his death, it was discovered that he had forged many of his "finds", including

murals A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...

and inscriptions used to discover the Çatalhöyük site.

Known archaeological forgeries and hoaxes

Calaveras Skull The Calaveras Skull (also known as The Pliocene Skull) was a human skull found by miners in Calaveras County, California, which was purported to prove that humans were in North America as early as the Pliocene, and used to support the idea the h ...

("discovered" 1866), purported to prove that humans lived in North America as early as the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58MYA) *

Cardiff Giant The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a , 3,000 pound purported "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardi ...

("discovered" 1869), carved

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

statue presented as a petrified man, over tall *

Davenport Tablets The Davenport Tablets are three inscribed slate tablets found in mounds near Davenport, Iowa on January 10, 1877, and January 30, 1878. If these tablets were real, they would have been proof for the argument that the people who built the Native Am ...

(discovered 1877–1978), ornately carved slate tablets of purported Native American origin, but dubious authenticity * "Egyptian mummy" ca. 1898, purchased from the estate of

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

Colonel Breevoort Butler in the 1920s, the "mummy" was found to be a wooden frame covered with papier-mache; it is on display at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Mississippi with its true nature openly revealed *

Etruscan terracotta warriors The Etruscan terracotta warriors are three statues that resemble the work of the ancient Etruscans, but are in fact art forgery, art forgeries. The statues, created by Italian brothers Pio and Alfonso Riccardi and three of their six sons, were bou ...

purchased by New York's

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

from 1915 to 1921; announced as forgeries in 1961 * Glozel tablets (archeological site discovered 1924), set of 100 inscribed ceramic tablets found in an authentic Medieval site among other artifacts of mixed authenticity and period * Grave Creek Stone *

Japanese Paleolithic hoax The consisted of a number of lower and middle paleolithic finds in Japan discovered by amateur archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura, which were later all discovered to have been faked. The incident became one of the biggest scandals in archaeological ...

Kinderhook plates The Kinderhook plates are a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with unusual engravings, created as a hoax in 1843, surreptitiously buried and then dug up at an Native American mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, Kinderhook, Illinois, Unit ...

Michigan relics The Michigan Relics (also known as the Scotford Frauds or Soper Frauds) are a series of alleged ancient artifacts that were "discovered" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They were presented by some to be evidence that people o ...

* Persian Princess, forged ancient mummy, possible murder victim *

* Tiara of Saitaferne in Louvre * Tiara of Saitaferne in Louvre

Cases generally believed by professional archaeologists to be forgeries or hoaxes

America's Stonehenge America's Stonehenge is a privately owned tourist attraction and archaeological site consisting of a number of large rocks and stone structures scattered around roughly within the town of Salem, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is open to ...

Bat Creek inscription The Bat Creek inscription is an inscribed stone tablet found by John W. Emmert on February 14, 1889. Emmert claimed to have found the tablet in Tipton Mound 3 during an excavation of Hopewell mounds in Loudon County, Tennessee. This excavation was ...

Bourne stone The Bourne Stone is an archaeological curiosity located in the town of Bourne, Massachusetts. The stone is a 300-pound chunk of granite, upon which two lines of carvings were made. History According to the Archaeological Institute of America, t ...

Burrows Cave Burrows Cave is the name given to an alleged cave site in Southern Illinois reputedly discovered in 1982 by Russell E. Burrows. Burrows says it contained a number of artifacts. Through the many inconsistencies and implausibilities that revolve aro ...

* Los Lunas Decalogue Stone * Newark Holy Stones: Keystone tablet and the Newark Decalogue Stone * Walam Olum *

Shroud of Turin The Shroud of Turin ( it, Sindone di Torino), also known as the Holy Shroud ( it, Sacra Sindone, links=no or ), is a length of linen cloth bearing the negative image of a man. Some describe the image as depicting Jesus of Nazareth and bel ...

Kensington Runestone The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke stone covered in runes that was allegedly discovered in central Minnesota in 1898. Olof Öhman, a Swedish immigrant, reported that he unearthed it from a field in the largely rural township of So ...

Gosford Glyphs The Gosford Glyphs, also known as Kariong Hieroglyphs, are a group of approximately 300 Egyptian-style hieroglyphs located in Kariong, New South Wales, Australia. They are found in an area known for its Aboriginal petroglyphs, just between Go ...

(discovered in the 1970s), Egyptian hieroglyphs carved into a pair of sandstone walls in New South Wales, Australia; widely acknowledged as modern forgeries, a minority of scholars use the glyphs as evidence of ancient Egyptian contact with Australia

Cases that several professional archaeologists believe to be forgeries or hoaxes

James Ossuary The James Ossuary is a 1st-century limestone box that was used for containing the bones of the dead. An Aramaic inscription meaning "James (Jacob), son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is cut into one side of the box. The ossuary attracted scholarly at ...

Jehoash Inscription The Jehoash Inscription is the name of a controversial artifact rumored to have surfaced in a construction site or Muslim cemetery near the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. The inscription describes repairs made to the temple in Jerusalem by Jehoash, ...

Ivory pomegranate The ivory pomegranate is a thumb-sized semitic ornamental artifact acquired by the Israel Museum. It is not actually made of ivory, but of hippopotamus bone and bears an inscription; ''Holy (Sacred) to the Priest of the House of God (YHWH)''. ...

* The pieces discovered in 2005-2006 in

Iruña-Veleia Veleia was a Roman town in Hispania, now located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. The site is located in the municipality of Iruña de Oca, 10 kilometers west of Vitoria. The town was an important station on the Roman road ''ab A ...

Cases that some professional archaeologists believe to be forgeries or hoaxes

Phaistos disc The Phaistos Disc (also spelled Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc) is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium BC). The disk is about ...

Gabriel's Revelation Gabriel's Revelation, also called ''Hazon Gabriel'' (the Vision of Gabriel) or the Jeselsohn Stone, is a stone tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink, containing a collection of short prophecies written in the first person. It is dat ...

Cascajal Block The Cascajal Block is a tablet-sized writing slab in Mexico, made of serpentinite, which has been dated to the early first millennium BCE, incised with hitherto unknown characters that may represent the earliest writing system in the New World. Ar ...

Mask of Agamemnon "Mask of Agamemnon" is the name given to a gold funeral mask discovered at the ancient Greek site of Mycenae. The mask, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, has been described by Cathy Gere as the "''Mona Lisa'' of prehisto ...

References

{{Authority control Forgery