Meetings with Remarkable Forgeries (British History)

[Chad]

That Aethelred I coin must be pretty rare. Only 152 others are known to exist (from two hoards and the odd stray) yet they mention without any sense of excitement.

https://digventures.com/projects/lindisfarne/

https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/2007_BNJ_77_6.pdf

[Mick Harper]

I'd have to check with Wiley but I think that's very common by the standard of Anglo-Saxon coins, though two hoards is pretty unusual to account for virtually all of them. However, in general, there is no dispute that Lindisfarne has always been well populated. Irrespective of whether (as we say) it's a Megalithically-constructed tidal island, it is a reasonable stretch of northern agricultural land and is certain to produce archaeology from all ages. My surprise arose from the fact that I would be startled if one season of digging would produce this array of goods from a reasonable stretch of northern agricultural land.

There is nothing there however to suggest the presence of a major monastery, the seat of a bishopric. And this is always the problem: the more they dig, the more glaring is this abscess. A major monastery on a tiny islet like Lindisfarne ought to dominate the archaeology not betray its presence by being serially unfindable.

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]

[Wile E. Coyote]

So we now have Lindisfarne Aethelred I unearthed. In terms of conventional christian chronology, that will be interpreted as a coin, issued after 865 when he became king (the starting year of the Great Heathen Invasion) and before 871 when he died. I suspect there is not much excitement as your profs are wondering why a coin of a King of Wessex has turned up in an area where it wouldn't be expected. Not much known of the moneyer who it is thought was based in Canterbury. Plenty of scope for orthodox reasonable inference, these devout frugal monks were actually trading with areas far wider than first thought.....err, during an invasion.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Dr Francis Young -- What about palaeography and internal evidence within a manuscript? What about art history? Virtually no 7th-century manuscript has an unbroken documented provenance, nor do historians expect this. We can't carbon-date everything, nor should we (and we don't need to)

Harriet Vered -- If it’s a fake the palaeography, internal evidence and art history will be impeccable. The provenance isn't unbroken, it's non-existent before 1790. I agree we can't carbon date everything but we might make an exception for the £9 million pride and joy of the nation. Yeah or nay?

Dr Francis Young -- But why wouldn't palaeographers or art historians be able to spot a fake? I'm a palaeographer (albeit specialising in a later period) and I can tell you it would be extremely difficult for a forger to get everything right; probably harder than forging a painting, even

Harriet Vered -- You mean like the Dead Sea Scrolls? Over and out.

Dr Francis Young -- The palaeographers and Biblical scholars raised suspicions about the 'Dead Sea scrolls' fragments that appeared in 2002 straight away! The article I tweeted was about the confirmation of their suspicions by carbon dating of the ink

Mick Harper: It is foolish trying to have the last word if it means selling the pass.

[Mick Harper]

The British Library has taken up the cudgels on behalf of our, and indeed their, beloved Cuthbert’s Gospel

[Mick Harper]

Here's a bit of a weirdo, even by their standards

[Hatty]

Provenance of the Pericopes of Henry II is uncertain (various candidates have been proposed) but ownership points to Bamberg Cathedral who claims it was a present from Henry, king and then emperor, 'shortly before 1014'. Provenance of the precious objects on the book's cover is also uncertain.

The ivory plaque itself is dated c. 848, supposedly a product of the 'Reichenau School', aka the Carolingian, or Ottonian, Renaissance, on stylistic grounds, though the ivory carving (a crucifixion scene) is said to be unusual, both theologically and artistically.

Bamberg Cathedral is problematic. Its foundation date is 1004, completed by 1012 in time to get its mitts on the Pericopes, but the current cathedral is a thirteenth century foundation. Eleventh-century masonry must have been pretty rubbish as nothing remains of the earlier foundations (two, allegedly) and the "style of that obscure period is not easily ascertained".

[Wile E. Coyote]

Funny thing, early Middle ages bugger all Monumental sculpture, but loads of Miniature sculptures of ivories.

Maybe there were just lots more tiny people in them days?

[Mick Harper]

That's a very good point, Wiley. Our position is that Classical sculpture is more or less entirely a product of the Grand Tour i.e. products of eighteenth century Italian stonemasons for Grand Tourists. So it may be that ivory miniatures were made for a previous incarnation of tourism, i.e. pilgrims, when the roads weren't as good and lugging big stuff home with you to impress the neighbours was a bit much.

But, with the statues, there really are a few genuine originals, though you wouldn't want them in your orangery -- they're disgusting, all black and unrecognisable and everything missing and what isn't missing defaced by being out in two thousand years of weather or two thousand years underground, or underwater. 'Darling, couldn't we put it in the shed, we've got Charles James Fox coming for tea.' There may be some genuine medieval ivory miniatures out there but I would think 99% of them were made by nineteenth century French ivory-masons.

International rings of counterfeit masons! I'm surprised they haven't organised themselves into a secret society or something. Though obviously we wouldn't know if they had.

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Gotta reply from the V & A re the mismatch twixt ivory and manuscript (not to mention my own confusion) which I assume I can quote verbatim, it being official