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Forgery: Modus operandi (British History)
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Mick Harper
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What do we make of this https://medium.com/the-guardian/i-pulled-a-1-500-year-old-sword-out-of-a-lake-1874f2d4f1bb ?

The only bit that clanged, aside from that over-egged detail about pops and the World Cup final, was the archaeologists finding 'also' a brooch and an eighteenth century coin. Why so? Because even in a few feet of water (and the lake would surely have returned to normal levels by this time) you simply can't do archaeology in the normal way. You have to bring out the big guns with scuba tanks and whatnot. If so, an undatable brooch and a not very old coin is not a lot to stick in the glass case next to an undatable sword.
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Hatty
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The Ricardi family were art forgers who began with a few sherds and moved on to whole jars before constructing a trio of statues, known as the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors

The Etruscan terracotta warriors are three statues that resemble the work of the ancient Etruscans, but are in fact art forgeries. The statues, created by Italian brothers Pio and Alfonso Riccardi and three of their six sons, were bought by The Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1915 and 1921.

It seems to have been the glaze on the statues rather than the terracotta that exposed the forgery

In 1960, chemical tests of the statue glazes showed the presence of manganese, an ingredient that Etruscans had never used. The museum was not convinced until experts deduced how they had been made. The statues had been sculpted, painted with glaze, then toppled while in an unfired, green state to produce fragments.

The most famous terracotta figures are of course the Chinese Terracotta Army, 'discovered in 1974 by local farmers'. There is no documentary record of an 'army' inside the tomb so everything has to rely on the archaeology. Five pottery sherds and two soil samples were dated using thermoluminescence dating (TL) and found to be 'over 2,200 years' old. The soil, according to the Chinese lab, confirms the ceramic dates

"It is consistent with other evidence that the Terracotta Army figures were made about 2200 yr ago and that the site burned down soon afterwards."

What 'other evidence' isn't clear.

But there is an inconsistency which TL doesn't address. The weapons found with the terracotta army are in remarkable condition. This was attributed by archaeologists to chromium, one of the hardest materials known, that had protected the bronze weapons from rust

Chemical analyses revealed that the enamel applied to the figures contained chromium dioxide. When the bronze weapons were initially studied to unravel how they had been maintained for two millennia in battle-ready condition—shiny, corrosion-free and even sharp—chromium traces were also found on the pieces. This led to the suggestion that Chinese craftsmen in the 3rd century BC had already developed a process of chromium-plated metal that was not patented in the West until the beginning of the last century.

But the chromium element was only present in the lacquer and had hardly any traceable effect on the weapons

The team led by Martinón-Torres has discovered that the traces of chromium found in the weapons are not really the remnants of a chromium plating process, but a simple contamination from the enamel applied to the figures and the now- missing wooden components.

“We found a substantial chromium content in the lacquer, but only a trace of chromium in the nearby pigments and soil, possibly contamination,” says Martinón-Torres. “The highest traces of chromium found on bronzes are always on weapon parts directly associated to now-decayed organic elements, such as lance shafts and sword grips made of wood and bamboo, which would also have had a lacquer coating.” “Clearly, the lacquer is the unintended source of the chromium on the bronzes, and not an ancient anti-rust treatment,” concludes the archaeologist.

No info is available about the date of the lacquer that had covered the paint as it flaked off almost immediately after the discovery!
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Mick Harper
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The Big Difference between the two terracotta armies is that one is a private initiative and the other, if also fake, would represent an official swindle on a gigantic scale. Risk vs reward is easily discernible in the first, but can we really believe the Chinese state would lend itself to universal derision in order to achieve .... what exactly? A major tourist attraction? A minor glorification of the Chinese past?

One wouldn't put it past them, so more power to the Hattian elbow (are there others on the trail?) but I'm provisionally lining up behind Chinky-poo on this one.
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Mick Harper
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Something kinda interesting (or maybe not) re the Vidostern Sword, above. Googling it, I just get 2018 news stories. Not even (British) Wiki seems interested. Is this embarrassment, careful ignoral or is it just too soon for anything more to emerge from the coils of Swedish academia? The reason I ask is that Sweden currently possesses the only known carbon-dated early medieval Christian artefact -- the Wulfilas Biblle -- which me and Hatty have had a similarly lengthy time getting official details about. Not as long as the Dead Sea Scrolls but you know what I mean.
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Ishmael


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Years ago, I suggested the Terracotta Army was faked by the CCP. But, of course, I had absolutely no evidence. It appears my hunch was correct (that hunch was, of course, inspired by the writing of Anatoly Fomenko).
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Mick Harper
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A long but interesting piece on how applying AI to pics exposes forgeries. https://medium.com/s/story/a-i-and-the-art-of-spotting-fakes-6a674b0bdfef The only problem, if you get that far, is it relies on having a genuine example to provide the base line. You may be sure that early medieval manuscripts will 'pass' that test.
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Boreades


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This could be a carbon-dated baseline.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130530-worlds-oldest-torah-scroll-bible-bologna-carbon-dating/

But it's the wrong language (Gromit)
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Mick Harper
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This is most extraordinarily valuable. Well done, Borry, I'm suspending your fourteen-year sentence for lèse-majesté. Our contention is that there is not a single European Dark Age manuscript in existence. This startling claim is subject to the daily worry, "What about this one then?" To be assured that the oldest extant Torah is only eight hundred years old therefore comes as blessed relief. We can put off the worrying for today. Don't keep your eyes peeled, everyone.
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Mick Harper
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The French government is appealing for corporate help to acquire the manuscript of the Marquis de Sade’s notorious The 120 Days of Sodom, valued at €4.5m (£3.9m), for the National Library of France (Guardian)

They can put it next to their most expensive acquisition of all time, the equally bogus manuscript of Casanova's La Vie. And like Casanova -- and like all the other national forged epics from Gawain and the Green Knight through Don Quixote to the EncyclopÄ—die of Denis Diderot -- it was the product of a gaolbird. Funny that.

It was composed in minute handwriting in 1785 on a 12-metre long and 11cm wide scroll. The aristocrat concealed the manuscript in the wall of his cell in the Bastille, where he was serving time after a series of sexual scandals.

"Nobody will notice me writing this but I'll pop it into a handy 12 metre by 11 centimetre hole in the wall just in case."

Ten days before the Bastille was stormed in 1789, De Sade was moved to an asylum and had to leave the manuscript behind. He never saw it again. It escaped the storming of the Bastille

"Listen up, sans-culottes, anything by de Sade, leave. Got it?"

and remained in the hands of a Provençal aristocrat’s family for more than 100 years

Notice a Provençal aristocrat’s family. About five minutes research will tell you de Sade didn't have a family because there is no record of de Sade. It is on record that flagellism (no, you're thinking of a spirogyra, Hatty) is a mid to upper class vice -- don't ask me why, I'm lower-middle -- and requires a mid to upper class name on the cover. Who wants to be beaten by the lower orders? I can tell you for nothing that ... well, we can have a look at all the classical steps every bogus but valuable manuscript must undergo shortly.
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Mick Harper
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and remained in the hands of a Provençal aristocrat’s family for more than 100 years

Essential. A bogus provenance has to keep 'the manuscript' safe for a very long time. Somewhere trustworthy, somewhere just out of sight.

It was then sold to a German collector, who allowed its publication for the first time in 1904, by the sexologist Iwan Bloch.

Translation: the forgers needed a respectable and relevant expert to give their just-produced artefact his imprimatur, but not a respectable and relevant expert on manuscripts.

then acquired by De Sade’s descendants, the Noailles family, in 1929

'Descendants' often pop up somewhere -- I was final drafting something on Samuel Pepys's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery only this morning. His descendants sold it a hundred and some years after his death. The point, of course, is that after a hundred and some years, descendants are kinda hard to identify. And even if they are one of them will be prepared to say anything for a bung. It's no skin off their nose.

It was stolen in 1982 and smuggled over the border to Switzerland, where it was sold it to a collector of erotica, Gérard Nordmann.

They always have a considerable lost-and-found history. Not only muddies the waters, adds to the mystique!

In 2014, it was acquired by a private foundation and put on display in Paris

Excuse I, but where is the gendarmerie? This is stolen property.

In 2017, the minister of culture classified it as a national treasure

Stand down, lads.

and put a block on its export when it was put up for auction. The French government is looking for corporate help to aid its acquisition of the manuscript, which is valued at €4.55m, telling companies that they can benefit from a reduction in corporate tax if they help it buy the scroll for the state.

Roll up, roll up, a penny a pitch.
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Mick Harper
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Banned in the UK in the 1950s, in 2016 an English translation of the work became a Penguin Classic. Writing at the time, its translator Will McMorran said that “its author will take his place alongside the great figures of world literature – many of whom would no doubt turn in their graves at the news that their club now counted Sade among its members”.

For author, substitute 'forger' throughout. Of course it may still be a classic of the genre. I'm not sufficiently au fait with modern examples to say more than 'about average'.
/ends
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Mick Harper
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I found this exceptionally interesting https://medium.com/belover/the-bible-before-the-bible-f997a5f7a5a6 not because it is intrinsically interesting but because a) I kept congratulating myself for being such an expert on these things nowadays and b) it contains the best case of careful ignoral I've come across for many a week. The writer, Jonathan Poletti, seems to think that the current whereabouts of the artefact is unknown even though he himself seems to believe the British Museum bought it so they must have it. Unless they don't... which would be even more interesting. But either way, it's kinda important.
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Mick Harper
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I found this at the end of the comments

Michael Langford about 8 hours ago
Does this mean that the original no longer exists?

AUTHOR about 8 hours ago
Yes the original scroll was sold at auction for a few pounds and went missing
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Mick Harper
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Does this mean that the original no longer exists?
Yes the original scroll was sold at auction for a few pounds and went missing

I have been brooding on this and not because the writer thinks 'not existing' is the same as 'gone missing'. Though in this case it could be!

We might agree that any artefact that was once offered to the British Museum for a million pounds, bought (presumably) for some lesser sum and oohed and aahed over by queues stretching round the Bloomsbury block with the Prime Minister at its head, is going to be worth more than 'a few pounds' simply as a curio. For Chrissake!

Actually, it is just possible. Scroll on thirty years, everyone's forgotten about it, some BM bean-counter says, "Round up some duff stuff and auction it off." Except that is not possible. The British Museum a) cannot auction stuff off without a steward's enquiry about whether the statutes allow it to and b) if it does it has to provide a provenance of some sort and "By purchase BM for £x thousand ..." is going to alert some cat among the pigeons. Also the auctioneers will have a record of who bought it.

My guess is that the BM did auction it off for a few pounds, bought it themselves and destroyed it. But I'm up for better explanations.
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Hatty
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Moses Shapira, according to Wiki, was "a known purveyor of forged Semitic artefacts". He presented the scroll to the BM in 1883 as "a Bible-related artefact" allegedly found in a wadi near the Dead Sea. He reportedly came up with six versions of its provenance, e.g. 'a tomb beyond the Jordan'.

In 1883 he'd tried to sell the scroll to the Royal Library of Berlin which took 90 minutes to decide it was a fake though Shapira later informed the BM no definitive conclusion had been reached.

The Royal Library offered to buy it at a lower price, to enable German students to study the forger's technique;[f][6] Shapira took it to London instead. The German scholars did not publicize their findings, and other experts' conclusions were reached independently.

Following his suicide, Shapira's widow kept 'at least part of' the scroll and sent it to Konstantin Schlottman, a Westphalian Protestant theologian, who denounced it as 'an evident forgery'

The scroll reappeared a couple of years later in a Sotheby's auction, where it was sold for £10 5s to Bernard Quaritch, who later listed it for £25.

Bernard Quaritch had been in the business of collecting rare books for thirty years and is (in)famous for

developing the largest trade in old books in the world

The last time anyone saw it was at a public lecture in Burton-on-Trent on 8th March 1889
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