Fake metal codices watch: more from Philip Davies

FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: Tom Verenna has published a message by Philip Davies on the metal codices. I quote it in part, with my comments:

Ok. Clarification:

‘Authentic’ means they are what they pretend to be. In the context of
a hypothesis tat they are ‘early Christian’ that would mean form the
1st or 2nd century CE. This I doubt, though if the scientific tests
continue to point to this timeframe, at least the metal is that old.
Which does not date the images, some of which are undoubtedly much later.

This in reference to Professor Davies's quoted comment in the Sheffield Telegraph article: "I think some of them may be authentic, and as yet I can’t work out what sort of a hoax they might be."

I think his point here is that the metal used to make the plates may in fact be quite old (as noted already in the earliest media coverage). Such old metal can be scrounged. But everyone is interested in the inscriptions and images, which clearly are modern fakes, so it seems confusing to bring in the word "authentic."

Is the metal of the plates ancient? We are told in that Jewish Chronicle article that Oxford metallurgist Peter Northover has produced a report that "concluded that their [the plates from one of the books] composition was 'consistent with a range of ancient lead,' and that it was clear from the surface corrosion that the book was 'not a recent production'." Until this research has been made available and reviewed by other specialists in ancient metallurgy — preferably by being published in a peer-review journal — I don't think anyone should take it seriously. We have no way of knowing now whether it is being represented accurately in context.

In theory, if the metal is ancient, it could have had some ancient markings on it too, and it seems as though Philip may be hinting that he thinks this to be the case. But I've seen nothing to indicate than any markings on the codices are actually ancient, whereas there is ample evidence that many of them, including all the writing, are fake. If something like this turns out to true, which I doubt very much, the images and writing that have been under discussion will still be fakes, although written on ancient metal with some other markings on it. That is the most generous interpretation I can put on Philip's comments.

What is most curious to me is the trouble taken to bind hundred of
sheets into book forms and stack them in a cave (if this story is
true, of course – the place need proper investigating). What has
really been going on?

I see no reason to believe the cave story without verification by archaeologists that it is the real provenance of the codices. The simplest explanation at the moment is that the cave story is made up.

As I have said ‘forgery’ is not quite the right term for objects that
are not making any claims to be anything. Maybe they are just trying
to look old. But I can’t see that they are more valuable in book form
than as single sheets. And why have they been hawked around museums and not gullible tourists or collectors?

If not "forgery," then at least "fake." (Me, I'll go for "forgery" too.) I don't know what it means to say that the objects are not making any claim to be anything. Producing fakes with fake ancient Greek poached from an ancient inscription, Hebrew lettering in faux ancient scripts, and fake iconography poached from real (and fake!) ancient objects is making an implicit claim that the artifacts are ancient. Since the writing and images are in fact modern, the artifacts are fake, whether or not the metal used to make them is ancient. The Shapira scroll forgeries (bottom of post), for example, made a similar implicit claim to antiquity, but no explicit claim (by, say, including a dated colophon etc.).

That said, Philip is raising some interesting questions about why the codices were made and why they were made in this particular way. As for why they are being hawked the way they are, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, the answer to a question that begins "Why have they ...?" is frequently "money." The only real information we have right now is that the Elkingtons seem primarily interested in hawking the codices to the media in the hope of making money from a documentary and a book.

I am not implying that they are the forgers; I have no idea who the forger(s) might be. Remember, the forgery could be fifty years old and the motives of the forger(s) long since lost in more recent developments.

If it turns out that the metal is ancient — which, again, remains to be seen — we can only be thankful that the writing and images are such crude fakes. If this had been done by people who knew what they were doing, we might have had a much harder time determining authenticity. Scary thought.

Background here etc. etc.