{"id":42918,"date":"2020-03-15T01:57:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T06:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=42918"},"modified":"2020-03-15T01:57:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T06:57:27","slug":"42918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=42918","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Dead Sea Scrolls\u2019 at the DC Museum of the Bible are all forgeries<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, a sweeping permanent exhibit tells the story of how the ancient scripture became the world\u2019s most popular book. A warmly lit sanctum at the exhibit\u2019s heart reveals some of the museum\u2019s most prized possessions: fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts that include the oldest known surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible.<\/p>\n

But now, the Washington, D.C. museum has confirmed a bitter truth about the fragments\u2019 authenticity. On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum\u2019s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum\u2019s founder, and some of the world\u2019s leading biblical scholars. Officials unveiled the findings at an academic conference hosted by the museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Museum of the Bible is trying to be as transparent as possible,\u201d says CEO\u00a0Harry Hargrave. \u201cWe\u2019re victims\u2014we\u2019re victims of misrepresentation, we\u2019re victims of fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a report spanning more than 200 pages, a team of researchers led by art fraud investigator\u00a0Colette Loll\u00a0found that while the pieces are probably made of ancient leather, they were inked in modern times and modified to resemble real Dead Sea Scrolls. \u201cThese fragments were manipulated with the intent to deceive,\u201d Loll says.<\/p>\n

The new findings don\u2019t cast doubt on the 100,000 real Dead Sea Scroll fragments, most of which lie in\u00a0the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, the report\u2019s findings raise grave questions about\u00a0the \u201cpost-2002\u201d Dead Sea Scroll fragments, a group of some 70 snippets of biblical text that entered the antiquities market in the 2000s. Even before the new report, some scholars believed that most to all of the post-2002 fragments were modern fakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce one or two of the fragments were fake, you know all of them probably are, because they come from the same sources, and they look basically the same,\u201d says \u00c5rstein Justnes, a researcher at Norway\u2019s University of Agder whose\u00a0Lying Pen of Scribes\u00a0project tracks the post-2002 fragments.
\nSince its 2017 opening, the Museum of the Bible has funded research into the pieces and sent off five fragments to Germany\u2019s Federal Institute for Materials Research for testing. In late 2018, the museum announced the results to the world: All five tested fragments\u00a0were probably modern forgeries.<\/p>\n

But what of the other 11 fragments? And how had the forgers managed to fool the world\u2019s leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars and the Museum of the Bible?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really was\u2014and still is\u2014an interesting kind of detective story,\u201d says\u00a0Jeffrey Kloha, the Museum of the Bible\u2019s chief curatorial officer. \u201cWe really hope this is helpful to other institutions and researchers, because we think this provides a good foundation for looking at other pieces, even if it raises other questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the microscope<\/p>\n

To find out more about its fragments, the Museum of the Bible reached out to Loll and her company,\u00a0Art Fraud Insights, in February 2019 and charged her with conducting a thorough physical and chemical investigation of all 16 pieces. Loll was no stranger to fakes and forgeries. After getting her master\u2019s in art history at George Washington University, Loll went on to study international art crime, run forgery investigations, and train federal agents on matters of cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

Loll insisted on independence. Not only would the Museum of the Bible have no say on the team\u2019s findings, her report would be final\u2014and would have to be released to the public. The Museum of the Bible agreed to the terms. \u201cHonestly, I\u2019ve never worked with a museum that was so up-front,\u201d Loll says.<\/p>\n

Loll quickly assembled a team of five conservators and scientists. From February to October, the team periodically visited the museum and pulled together their findings. By the time their report was finalized in November 2019, the researchers were unanimous. All 16 fragments appeared to be modern forgeries…….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Dead Sea Scrolls\u2019 at the DC Museum of the Bible are all forgeries. WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, a sweeping permanent exhibit tells the story of how the ancient scripture became the world\u2019s most popular book. A warmly lit sanctum at the exhibit\u2019s heart reveals some of … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42928,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42918\/revisions\/42928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}