FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: I had hoped this story would die down, but since it is flaring up again, this seems like an opportune moment for a recap of the evidence that the metal codices are fakes.
1. One of them, a copper plate in a codex, has a Greek phrase, badly copied (the writer didn't know alpha from lambda), which phrase makes no sense in context because it was copied from an ancient tomb inscription published by Milik in 1958. The phrase makes sense on the epitaph but not the codex. See here and here.
2. Many (most or all?) of the lead codices share iconographic motifs with the obviously fake copper codex. They are from the same "cache."
Dan MacClellan's conclusions can be applied more widely. Have a look at the large collection of photos here. Look for the star pattern, the marginal dots, the marginal rectangular pattern, the stylized palm tree, the odd paleo-Hebrew script. Are there any readable plates that don't have some of these features? The published photographs show a collection of inscribed plates that share many features and are clearly a single cache to which the one with the fake Greek text belongs.
I do note that in this picture there are two metal plates that look like scrolls rather than codices. Tom Verenna has suggested here that they look like lead curse scrolls. I have not worked with such scrolls myself, and in any case the scrolls are not readable. It is within the bounds of possibility (not probability) that a couple of genuine ancient lead curse scrolls have been mixed into this collection of fakes. I doubt it, but I can't say for sure without good, readable photographs of those particular plates.
With that one caveat, we can say with confidence that the metal codices whose pictures are available thus far are fakes.
Ancillary evidence:
3. In general, the iconography of the codices looks suspiciously like it was taken out of context from ancient resources available today. See here and here.*
4. Including a coin that itself is a modern fake.
5. Steve Caruso has also published script charts on the basis of which he argues that the "Hebrew" script is an odd combination of different Aramaic scripts from different provenances.
6. The "Hebrew" text doesn't make any sense. Code or gibberish? Given the above, I vote for gibberish.
7. I realize that at least some of the metal itself may be ancient, but such metal is available, so, given all of the above, that is not a persuasive argument in favor of genuineness. If some of the metal is ancient, in the highly unlikely and not-yet-argued event that some of it also has ancient markings on it, this in no way obviates the fact that the plates and their inscriptions and iconographic markings as they stand now are fakes.
The metal codices are crude fakes. If the new lot in the hands of the Jordanian Government are from the same cache with the same features, they are fakes too.
Background here etc. etc.
(*One should not make too much of the suspicion that the crocodile mold was made using a modern plastic toy, but it would be interesting to have a look at ancient crocodile iconography to see if the obvious resemblance is a coincidence or not. And to look at modern plastic toy crocodiles to see if one is an exact match to the relief in the plate.)
