ROBERT DEUTSCH AND THE FORGERY SCANDAL: Chuck Jones posts the following on the ANE List:

The recent indictments for forgery make this statement on ANE on
January 21 2003 by Robert Deutsch all the more interesting:

https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2003-January/005790.html

in particular the statement on the potential political motivations for forgery.

Have there been other published statements (aside from short
quotations in the news media) from any of those indicted expressing
opinions on the artifacts in question?

(Chuck also gives a plug for my blog and those of Ed Cook and Seth Sanders. Thanks, and welcome to readers brought here by his post.)

Can anyone tell me if the bullae from the Moussaieff collection are among the suspected forgeries? The A.P's list of products of the forgery ring (which, incidentally, includes the ivory pomegranate) refers to "Numerous wax seals, said to belong to biblical figures. Some selling for $90,000." Now there aren't any wax seals from biblical period Israel, so I assume this is confused and they mean to say either stone seals or clay seal impressions; if the latter, then bullae. At least some of the ostraca in the Moussaieff collection have been argued to be forgeries, and Christopher Rollston has raised the possibility that some of the bullae are forged too. Perhaps someone who has seen the 27-page indictment can tell me whether bullae are mentioned. (Incidentally, is the indictment available anywhere online?)

If the bullae are included, it's worth mentioning that I heard Robert Deutsch speak on them at the International SBL meeting in Cambridge in July, 2003. Shortly after the conference I posted a couple of comments on his presentation. In the first I wrote:

All the papers were interesting but I'll just note Robert Deutsch's, since I have his handout in front of me. He spoke on royal bullae (clay seal impressions). I won't repeat specifics, but I'm sure he won't mind if I say that he displayed and commented on numerous bullae that included names of kings and names of royal officials of various types, and that this material gives us lots of new details about the Judean royal court in the monarchical period.

I don't think I have the handout anymore, unfortunately.

In the second I wrote:

I recall that Robert Deutsch took us in detail through his authentication procedure for the bullae he was discussing, so the people working with this material are not unaware of the problem.

All the more interesting in retrospect. What context we put this into depends, naturally, on what the trial brings out in due course.

UPDATE: Ed Cook: "They belong in a museum!" Amen.

UPDATE (2 January): More here.