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Reposted by Michael Press

Erin L. Thompson @artcrimeprof.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Fantastic detective work from @michaeldpress.bsky.social - tracking down the forged letter used to fake an old provenance for recently looted cuneiform tablets! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

How fitting that Commentary chose to illustrate this nasty, fraudulent piece of work with a notorious fake, the Jehoash Inscription. What a way to show you care about Jewish history.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Instead of this fairytale that Mandel ends with, we might note that Israel, like every other actor in this story, uses the idea of "preserving world history" for political ends -- and this includes Mandel and Commentary.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

So, Mandel and Commentary care so much about Jewish history that they recycled a stock image of a fake inscription to illustrate this nasty piece of crap.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

As far as I can tell, this illustration first appeared in a 2005 Nature article on this and other forgeries causing a scandal in Israel in beyond. Apparently it has since become a stock image available from Getty Images & used in different articles. www.nature.com/articles/434...

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

There is a silver lining to this nasty piece of work, though: the choice of illustration. What we have here is something that has nothing to do with the article itself -- it's a detail of the so-called "Jehoash Inscription," a notorious forgery.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Mandel then dismisses the idea that the bill is opposed because it is a way of officially annexing (he uses the common euphemism "sovereignty expansion") the West Bank -- even though, in the very TOI article he starts with, the MK who introduced the bill admits this openly.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

It's probably very telling that Mandel uses the word "expert" here and not "archaeologist", so that this is not a literal lie, just highly misleading.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Mandel continues by quoting an "Israeli expert" on the nature and scale of the destruction. The reader will naturally infer that the expert is an archaeologist -- but when you follow the link you see the "expert" is actually a senior figure at a settler organization.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

And, if we were actually trying to understand looting, we would note (as experts in the study of the antiquities trade regularly do) that trafficking is driven by the demand side. In this case, a significant percentage of the collectors and dealers driving the trade are Israelis

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

He also conveniently omits any mention of Israeli culpability -- even though, just below the passage Mandel quotes, a settler organization admits to the fact that Israelis, too, are looting sites.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

In the process, of course, he continues the longstanding, absurd Israeli obsession (from long before 2023) of comparing Palestinians -- and not just Hamas, but Palestinians in general -- to ISIS

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

He dismisses any discussion of *why* the looting might be happening -- something vital to understand if you want to actually counteract it -- to keep laser-focused on blaming Palestinians.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Mandel ignores all of this, to focus on the issue apparently of greatest concern to him: blaming Palestinians for the problem.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

While there are some problems with this article, you can at least learn something about what is going on, the viewpoints of the different actors involved, and how international law relates. bsky.app/profile/mich...

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Of all the hysterical warnings over the last few years that "they're destroying our history", this -- from the senior editor of Commentary -- might be both the nastiest and the most dishonest 🧵

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

All the scrolls & fragments in rotation at Museum of the Bible (& I believe those displayed at the Reagan Library) were found in caves around Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank when it was under Jordanian occupation, & have since been moved illegally by Israel to West Jerusalem

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition opened last year (and is closing today) at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library -- another institution that apparently sees no problem partnering with the IAA. www.reaganlibrary.gov/exhibits/spe...

reaganlibrary.gov

Special Exhibit: Dead Sea Scrolls

Special Exhibit: Dead Sea Scrolls. NOVEMBER 22, 2024 - SEPTEMBER 2, 2025*

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Nearly two years into Israel's annihilation of Gaza and Museum of the Bible's partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is still going strong.

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Reposted by Michael Press

Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

In Revue Biblique, I have an article on the provenance of the "Nazareth Inscription", an Early Roman-period text that has been often linked over the last century with the earliest Christians. What can we actually say about it? 🧵

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Thus, we are left with a blank -- as usually happens with the antiquities trade, the act of looting destroys any real knowledge we could ever have about where this object actually comes from. poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?...

poj.peeters-leuven.be

PEETERS ONLINE JOURNALS

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

So, what can we conclude about the inscription? When Froehner wrote that the inscription was sent from Nazareth, it very likely was sent by the Koubourssys -- but they could have collected it almost anywhere in the southern Levant.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

In fact, the only dealers in Palestine that I'm aware of who sent items to French collectors in the 19th century were these 2 dealers from Nazareth

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

And (as has been known for decades but has been ignored by most scholars) among the French collectors who interacted with the Koubourssys was Wilhelm Froehner himself--the man who acquired the Nazareth Inscription! (Froehner, Mélanges d’épigraphie et d’archéologie XI-XXV, 1875)

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

The Koubourssys were the source of several antiquities now in the Louvre, but their names are nowhere to be found in the Louvre's collection database; only the collectors like de Saulcy who acquired the items from the Koubourssys & then donated them to the Louvre are named.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Source: Félicien de Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte (1874)

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

In particular, I was able to highlight the activities of 2 members of the Koubourssy family of Nazareth, who acquired antiquities for French collectors between the 1860s and 1890s, and whose activities ranged from S Syria to Kerak in Transjordan to Akka to Asqalan.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

As for the claim abut Nazareth as an antiquities hub: my research on the 19c antiquities trade has shown that in fact Nazareth *was* a regional hub for the trade: Objects were collected east of the Jordan, and were sold not just to tourists but to merchants from Lebanon.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

I argue, however, that both these conclusions are wrong. First, the only evidence for tying the inscription to Kos is a provenience study of the marble -- but this would demonstrate only where the marble was quarried. It tells us nothing about where it was set up.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Second, as lead author of a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Harper argued that the inscription had nothing to do with Christians or Nazareth at all -- instead, the authors conclude, it was actually set up on the island of Kos. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

First, in the LA Review of Books (2018), Harper argued the inscription may well be connected to the Gospel story: he insists that Nazareth was not an antiquities hub, so if it was sent from there then the inscription must have been found near there. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

lareviewofbooks.org

The Emperor and the Empty Tomb: An Ancient Inscription, an Eccentric Scholar, and the Human Need to Touch the Past | Los Angeles Review of Books

Is the Nazareth inscription the oldest artifact of Christianity? A mysterious document and an eccentric scholar hold the clues.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Recently the discussion of the Nazareth Inscription has been reset by Kyle Harper (University of Oklahoma) in 2 publications.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Specifically, it is seen as a response to the story in the Gospel of Matthew (27-28) about claims that Christians had removed Jesus's body from his tomb. (Matt 28:11-15, RSV www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...)

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Based on the Early Roman date, the association with Nazareth, and the subject matter of the inscription (laws against disturbing tombs), many scholars have suggested over the years that the inscription is tied to the earliest Christians.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Catalogues manuscrits, inventaires et registres des collections d'antiques. Inventaires et registres produits par le département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques concernant les antiquités. Collection Froehner. Volume 8. Folio 13r gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

The only direct evidence concerning its provenance is a line in one of Froehner's notebooks, stating that it was "sent from Nazareth in 1878".

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

It was acquired by the German-French collector and scholar Wilhelm Froehner, who left it (with the rest of his collection) to the Bibliothèque nationale de France on his death in 1925; it is now on display in the BnF's museum. medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr/ws/catalogue...

medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr

Oeuvre : Précisions - inscription, "“Edit de Nazareth”" (Froehner.VIII.13) | catalogue

Notice d'œuvre ''inscription, "“Edit de Nazareth”" (Froehner.VIII.13)'' du musée ''catalogue''

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

The inscription is a large slab with the Greek text of the rescript of an unnamed emperor, dealing with laws against disturbing tombs (including bodies in tombs). Paleographically it is generally dated to the 1st century BCE or 1st century CE.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Meanwhile, the study the news article is based on -- in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) -- makes no mention of "il(legal)", "occupied", "Palestine/Palestinian", or "East Jerusalem" (or "West Bank")

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Euphemisms galore: Even the left-leaning Haaretz sees occupied East Jerusalem as merely "contested" & an illegal Israeli dig there as merely "controversial". Also, Elad does more than "promote Jewish settlement in Silwan", it's worked for decades to evict Palestinians.

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

And as so often in these cases about international law and occupation, the settlers can't help lying: They pretend this is about "Jews" (and not Israelis) and merely about "excavating certain areas".

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Remarkable lack of self-awareness: Israeli archaeologist at West Bank settler university complains about a "colonialist power".

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

It's telling that the other stated reason for opposition is that the authorities would actually need a search warrant. Currently the law in the West Bank gives authorities greater power; if Israeli law is extended, the accused would actually have rights (gasp).

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Israeli archaeologists are almost universally opposed to this bill, but (for the most part) not for opposition to annexation or any moral reason. Most are simply afraid this will lead to boycotts and hurt them professionally

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Michael Press @michaeldpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Some highlights (lowlights?): The Likud MK who proposed the bill openly admits this is about extending full Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, and that archaeology is just the first step.

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