Is This Inscription Fake?
You Decide
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| La Melagrana d'avorio |
The famous Ivory Pomegranate Inscription: Is it a forgery or authentic? You decide. And let us know your decision.
A Hebrew inscription is engraved around the shoulder of the thumb-size pomegranate that reads, “Holy to the priests, (belonging) to the Temple of [Yahwe]h.”
For decades the tiny object occupied a special place in Jerusalem’s prestigious Israel Museum—the only surviving relic from Solomon’s Temple.
The pomegranate was first seen in 1979 in a Jerusalem antiquities shop by one of the world’s leading Semitic epigraphers, André Lemaire of the Sorbonne. Based on a lifetime of experience and a careful examination, he pronounced the inscription authentic. It was also examined by Professor Nahman Avigad of The Hebrew University, then Israel’s most respected epigrapher, who wrote that “I am fully convinced of ... the authenticity of its inscription ... [T]he epigraphic evidence alone, in my opinion, is absolutely convincing.”
With these assurances, in 1989 the Israel Museum acquired the pomegranate for $550,000. All Israel was excited. On the day the pomegranate went on display in a special room of the museum with a narrow light beaming on it from the ceiling, the exhibit was the first item on the evening news in Israel.
In 2004, after two widely publicized inscriptions had been declared forgeries by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the museum decided to revisit the question of the authenticity of the Pomegranate Inscription. A special committee was appointed to reexamine the inscription, using the latest scientific technologies. The committee concluded that the inscription was a forgery!
Lemaire subsequently reexamined the inscription, however, and he was unconvinced. After restudying the inscription under a stereoscopic microscope, he concluded that the pomegranate committee had misinterpreted what it saw and that the inscription was authentic.
In January 2007, at a conference on forgeries convened in Jerusalem by the Biblical Archaeology Society, Lemaire and the two epigraphers on the pomegranate committee, Professors Shmuel Ahituv of Ben-Gurion University and Aaron Demsky of Bar-Ilan University, discussed their differences and decided to look at the object again.
This meeting took place at the Israel Museum on May 3, 2007, where Professor Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University projected microscopic images of the individual letters onto a screen for all to examine. Alas, the scholars were unable to resolve their differences. They looked through the same microscope, but they saw different things.
 
 
The issue is at once complicated and simple. Much of the ball of the pomegranate broke off in antiquity, and two small modern breaks have made the ancient break even larger. As a result, several letters are completely missing and must be reconstructed. But three letters are partially there. It is these three partial letters that are crucial. If these three partial letters artificially stop short of the breaks, as the committee believes, the inscription is a forgery. The forger would apparently have been afraid of breaking off more of the pomegranate if he went into the breaks. If, on the other hand, the partial letters do go into the ancient break, forming a “v” when viewed in section, the inscription is authentic because the inscription must be earlier than the ancient break.
You can now look at the pictures yourself and make up your own mind. Just go to www.biblicalarchaeology.org/pomegranate
to read BAR editor Hershel Shanks’s report on this May 3 meeting, along with microscopic photographs of the partially surviving letters of the inscription and directions on how to “read” the pictures. You don’t need to know ancient Hebrew, and you don’t need to be an expert in Hebrew epigraphy. You just need to be able to decide by looking at the pictures whether a stroke of a letter does or does not go into a break in the pomegranate.
Enjoy yourself, and let us know what you think.
Further Reading:
Ivory Pomegranate/Pomegranate Inscription
Analysis of Microscope Photographs: The Ivory Pomegranate Inscription—Preserved And Missing
Is the Ivory Pomegranate a Forgery or Authentic?
Once the disagreements over who was to be present at the meeting were resolved, the scholars turned to examining the pomegranate. Photo 1 shows the pomegranate under the microscope; Yuval Goren, who controlled the microscope during the examination, is seen in the background speaking with me. InPhoto 2 Goren is using the microscope while flanked by Ahituv and me. Photo 3 shows Demsky taking a turn at the microscope; across from him are Dayagi-Mendels, McCarter and Lemaire.
David Darom
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. The pomegranate (circled) was observed through a powerful instrument that was operated by Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University (rear, left). Next to Goren is Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review and the author of the accompanying article.
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David Darom
GOREN EXAMINES the pomegranate as epigrapher Shmuel Ahituv and Shanks look on.
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David Darom
EPIGRAPHER AARON DEMSKY takes a turn at the microscope; across from him are Michal Dayagi-Mendels, chief archaeology curator at the Israel Museum, Shanks, and epigraphers P. Kyle McCarter, of Johns Hopkins University, and André Lemaire, of the Sorbonne.
The inscription, engraved around the shoulder of the pomegranate, consists of two parts: (1) “(Belonging) to the Temple of Yahweh” (the personal name of the Israelite God) on one side of the pomegranate; and “Holy to the priests” on the other side. The second part of the inscription is clear. It is the first part that raises questions. Unfortunately, about a third of the grenade (or ball) of the pomegranate broke off in antiquity, leaving only traces of the phrase “the Temple of Yahweh,” which the scholars were required to reconstruct.
In the drawing below, the dotted line marks the broken edge of the shoulder of the pomegranate. The solid part of the letters above the dotted line is actually there. The outlined part of the letters (below the dotted line) is not there; these letters have been reconstructed on the basis of what is there. Enough of these letters still exists so that the epigraphers are all confident that these are the letters intended to be read in the first part of the inscription. (The second part of the inscription, on the undamaged side of the pomegranate, which reads “Holy to the Priests,” is all there.)
Ancient Jerusalem Revealed
“THE TEMPLE OF YAHWEH” reads the damaged part of the inscription. Black indicates extant letters; the dotted line shows where the ivory pomegranate is broken off and the outlined letters indicate presumed letters.
Drawing A
This same thing is shown in the round in the drawing below by Professor Avigad. Both Avigad and the committee saw the same partial letters. The existing part of the three partial letters is in black; the reconstructed part is in outline.
Il 27 dicembre 2004 fu annunciato che il Museo di Israele a Gerusalemme riteneva che la melagrana d'avorio (costata più di mezzo milione di dollari), che si pensava avesse ornato lo scettro del Sommo Sacerdote del Tempio di Salomone, potesse non essere correlato al Tempio stesso. Questo reperto era il più importante tra quelli biblici in possesso del Museo; era stato anche esposto in visita al Museo Canadese della Civilizzazione nel 2003. Il rapporto descriveva la piccola melagrana, di soli 44 mm di altezza come incisa con ...lettere in Ebraico antico che riportavano le parole (ricostruite) Dono sacro per i sacerdoti nella Casa di Dio (in ebraico moderno, לבית יהוה קדש כהנם - Alla Casa di Dio Santo Sacerdote).
Il Museo di Israele ritiene oggi che il pezzo risalga al XIV o XIII secolo a.C., e che l'iscrizione sia moderna. Gli esperti temono che questa sia una manifestazione di un sistema di frodi nei reperti; le autorità Israeliane hanno indiziato cinque persone.
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