Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China

Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich, Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9783110714418
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Critica letteraria asiatica

Fakes and forgeries are objects of fascination. This volume contains a series of thirteen articles devoted to fakes and forgeries of written artefacts from the beginnings of writing in Mesopotamia to modern China. The studies emphasise the subtle distinctions conveyed by an established vocabulary relating to the reproduction of ancient artefacts and production of artefacts claiming to be ancient: from copies, replicas and imitations to fakes and forgeries. Fakes are often a response to a demand from the public or scholarly milieu, or even both. The motives behind their production may be economic, political, religious or personal – aspiring to fame or simply playing a joke. Fakes may be revealed by combining the study of their contents, codicological, epigraphic and palaeographic analyses, and scientific investigations. However, certain famous unsolved cases still continue to defy technology today, no matter how advanced it is. Nowadays, one can find fakes in museums and private collections alike; they abound on the antique market, mixed with real artefacts that have often been looted. The scientific community's attitude to such objects calls for ethical reflection.

Part I:From Copies to Forgeries

Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day

Cécile Michel

Abstract

During the three millennia in which cuneiform script was used, scribes copied texts for educational purposes or to preserve existing knowledge. They also created new texts, even reproducing older scripts in some cases. Some of the antique fakes that were produced in the process, such as the cruciform monument to Maništušu, are well known to Assyriologists, but the authenticity of other texts is still being debated, one example being the royal letters of the kings of Ur. In legal texts and royal inscriptions, certain clauses prevented the possible appearance of a false document. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, archaeological excavations in the Near East brought hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets to light and caused people’s interest in Mesopotamian antiquities to grow. This led to the production of modern fakes, too, for obvious economic reasons, and many of these were bought by private collectors and museums around the world. This article deals with a great variety of such cases, including copies, replicas, imitations, transformations and fakes, in a bid to understand the context in which they were made, what motivated their originators and, when possible, how they were treated by scholars and collectors.

During the three millennia in which cuneiform script was employed (from the late fourth millennium BCE to the first century CE), scribes produced a great variety of texts, mainly on clay, but also on other materials such as stone, metal or wooden board covered with wax. To date, more than a million cuneiform texts have been discovered in a large area of the Near East ranging from Anatolia to Iran and from northern Iraq to Egypt and Bahrain. Cuneiform script, which was created with a stylus pressed down on fresh clay, consists of combinations of wedges forming as many signs as necessary. The system is ingenious and very easy to reproduce, but the scribes had to memorise a large number of different signs. Most of the collections around the world include some fake pieces of writing,¹ either antique or modern. While Assyriologists generally have no problem identifying modern fakes, they have more difficulty when it comes to antique fakes.

Besides writing original texts, Mesopotamian scribes also copied literary compositions, scientific and official texts for centuries for educational purposes or to preserve the knowledge these contained. These copies may have been written several centuries after the original text. The scribes also created new compositions using old scripts in some cases. Although some of these texts can be defined as apocryphal today, such as the text on the Maništušu cruciform monument composed with the deliberate aim of deceiving the reader, rewriting the past as the author of the composition intended, others should simply be regarded as writing exercises for which historians would not have the manual. Their authenticity is still being debated, as for instance some of the letters of the kings of Ur. Fake documents may also have been created and used in legal contexts. Certain clauses prevented the possible appearance of a false document, and matters dealt with in court sometimes involved fake wills. These fakes were obviously created with economic motives in mind. Whenever such ancient documents are discovered these days, it is difficult for scholars to identify them clearly as fakes, for reasons that shall be discussed later.

By creating royal inscriptions, Mesopotamian rulers partly intended to leave their name to posterity. Consequently, these texts often end with maledictions directed at anyone who might want to alter or erase them. This has not discouraged various victorious rulers from deleting parts of older inscriptions and adding a few lines of their own to them, however. When they ‘signed’ inscribed items of booty, they did not create a fake, but they did destroy the integrity of an older text. The historian has to deal with ancient inscriptions bearing texts from different periods. If it does not respect the original building plans, the restoration of ancient monuments may cause the same problems of interpretation for future archaeologists and historians.

The first archaeological excavations conducted in the Near East in the nineteenth and early twentieth century brought hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets to light and subsequently caused scholars’ interest in Mesopotamian antiquities to grow. The increasing popularity of cultural heritages gave birth to the production of ‘modern fakes’, some of which were actually cast from originals. This was also the case for non-inscribed artefacts such as terracotta reliefs, statues and seals. Several private collectors and museums around the world bought these cuneiform tablets in the belief they were authentic objects. The production of forgeries that were then sold on the antique market occurred for obvious economic reasons. However, the making of fakes may be due to other motives.

This article is dedicated to cuneiform fakes and aims to help the reader understand the context in which they were made, the motives their originators had and, when possible, their treatment by scholars and collectors. It deals with a great variety of cases in which the originator’s intention is not always clear – did the person want to make a copy, a replica, an imitation, a fake or a forgery? It starts with some ancient examples, discussing their identification as possible fakes and the reasons for their production. The second part deals with modern examples, from production techniques to the methods used to detect them. Modern fakes appeared on the antique market at an early stage; we will follow the history of their production from the nineteenth century up to today and try to understand how museums and scholars have dealt with them. The chapter will end with some written artefacts that may be referred to as ‘useful fakes’, namely those made by scholars as an experiment.

1 Ancient fakes

Mark Jones, one of the world specialists on fakes, has pointed out that the question ‘what is a fake?’ is not easy to answer.² How can fakes be distinguished from copies, imitations or replicas? This is a problem of terminology and applies not only to modern times where making fakes may be seen as a lucrative activity, but to Antiquity as ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts: An Introduction
• Part I:From Copies to Forgeries
• Part II:Forgers and Their Motives
• Part III:Identifying Fakes
• Contributors