A Border Force officer at Heathrow Airport discovered the hundreds of clay figurines, pots, and tablets covered in cuneiform script in a pair of metal trunks last July. Intercepted en route from Bahrain to a private address in the UK, the objects were sent to the British Museum for inspection. There, they were discovered to be fakes.The clay tablets were inscribed with "gibberish cuneiform."
The striking thing about the discovery, says St John Simpson, a curator at the British Museum, is not the number of counterfeit relics. It’s the type.
In a roundabout way, it's good news that the antiquities "market is flooded with fakes." It means that real ancient artifacts are harder to get. As long as the fakes are of poor quality, they will only fool careless collectors.
Good-quality forgeries are another matter. They are truly dangerous.
It will be interesting to hear more about that "private address in the UK."
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