Panel: Famed relic from First Temple era a fake

A famous artifact on display in the Israel Museum, which is billed as the only relic of the First Temple ever discovered, is actually a forgery, a committee of experts has determined.

The panel, which has been secretly working for the past several months, found that the "ivory pomegranate" comes from a much earlier period, while the inscription on it is a fake that was added recently, Haaretz has learned. The committee recently presented its findings, based on the latest diagnostic methods, to the museum, which last night confirmed the information received by Haaretz. The museum stressed in response that it had the pomegranate checked by several experts before it purchased the artifact, and several subsequent expert examinations also cast no doubt on its authenticity. However, it said, new testing methods have since been developed, which were used in the most recent round of checks.

The new tests were performed as part of a major investigation by the police and the Israel Antiquities Authority into several antiquities forging rings that have been active here in recent years. The probe was sparked by two prominent "discoveries" in 2002 that later proved to be fakes: the Jehoash inscription and the "Jacob, brother of Jesus" ossuary. The ivory pomegranate, however, is the most famous artifact to date to be revealed as a fraud. The museum purchased it for $600,000 in 1988, believing it to be an object used in priestly rites in the First Temple.

The most important part of the ivory artifact was a nine-letter inscription in ancient Hebrew writing, of which only six letters were legible. In the early 1980s, French researcher Andre Lemaire said the inscription, dated from the eighth century BCE, was an acronym for a phrase meaning "sacred donation for the priests of God's house." Based on Lemaire's findings, the pomegranate was believed to be the head of a scepter carried by the Temple priests. Lemaire said he first saw the artifact in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem in the late 1970s, after which it was sold and smuggled out of the country. Lemaire published his research on the pomegranate in the popular journal Archaeological Review in 1984, and the Israel Museum was approached about buying it in 1987. It decided to do so after well-known archaeologist Nahman Avigad vouched for the pomegranate's authenticity - following a cursory examination that apparently relied mainly on a magnifying glass.

The purchase itself was concluded in a highly secretive manner. The museum did not know the owner's identity; all negotiations were conducted via intermediaries. And the museum was asked to deposit the money in a numbered Swiss bank account, after which it was directed to a safe containing the pomegranate.