History, alas, cannot be classified as an exact science, although any real scientist engaged in the study of the past would give a lot to bring it closer to such. Probably the ultimate dream of every historian is a time machine that would allow you to visit the past and see how everything really was!
Unfortunately, such a machine has not been invented. So the subject of the study of history are documents and various objects, probably belonging to one or another era. Why "probably"? Because the number of falsifications is very large, and their level is sometimes so high that even specialists cannot immediately recognize them. These are some of these curious cases that we want to tell today.
Scandal in Germany
In Diban (Jordan) in 1868, archaeologists found a stone with an inscription carved on it of the Moabite king Meshi, who lived in the 9th century BC (the Moabites are a Semitic people who occupied territories adjacent to the eastern shore of the Dead Sea). The find aroused great interest, and soon clay figurines appeared in Jerusalem, rumored to be found in the same place as the "Mesha stone."
These figurines, decorated with seven dots and long, but indecipherable inscriptions, also did not go unnoticed. On the advice of some Oriental scholars, the Prussian government bought a collection of such figurines for the Berlin Museum, paying for them a very significant sum at that time - 20,000 thalers.
However, the French explorer Charles Clermont-Ganneau intervened. He and his colleagues were able to prove that the "Moabite antiquities" are nothing more than a fake, finding their author - the Jerusalem artist, the Arab Selim. The air smelled of political scandal - after all, the acquisition of these exhibits was supposed to be a manifestation of the cultural activity of Germany in the Middle East.
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German scientists and politicians made every effort to refute the conclusions of the Frenchman, but in vain - the evidence was irrefutable. It is not known how it would have ended if it had not been for the famous historian Theodor Mommsen, who forced the Prussian parliament to admit its mistake when deciding on the purchase of "antiquities".
The missing manuscript
The same Clermont-Ganneau exposed another forgery, also associated with the discovery of the "Meshi stone". Someone D. Shapiro offered the British Museum an "ancient manuscript", asking for no less … a million pounds. However, the writings in this manuscript were suspiciously similar to those of the Moabite.
Despite this, after close research, the curator of the manuscript department of the British Museum recognized the manuscript as a rare historical monument, and one of the German scholars even managed to publish his own version of the "translation". But the restless Clermont-Ganneau was right there this time too. He stated that Shapiro constructed his manuscript from scraps of old synagogue scrolls. This loud revelation got into the newspaper “Time”, after which Shapiro committed suicide.
But, perhaps, not everything is so simple here. Recently, Dead Sea manuscripts containing similar texts were discovered, and some scholars began to question the Frenchman's correctness. What if Shapiro, as he claimed, really bought his manuscript from some Bedouin? It is now impossible to verify this in any way - immediately after Shapiro's death, the document mysteriously disappeared from the museum. Only questions remain. Did Shapiro receive his million or at least a part of it, and if so, where did this money go? Was Shapiro a hoaxer, and if not, why did he commit suicide? And was it suicide? These are the questions that history sometimes poses.
Fake tiara
On April 1, 1896, the Louvre announced the purchase of a gold tiara belonging to the Scythian king Saitafern for 200,000 gold French francs. According to experts in the Louvre, the Greek inscription on the tiara confirmed the time period from the late 3rd century to the beginning of the 2nd century BC.
The domed tiara with a pointed end, the height of which was 17.78 centimeters, and the weight was more than 450 grams of pure gold, was decorated with a narrow braid below, which reflected scenes from the daily life of the Scythians. The wider top band depicted scenes from the Iliad, including the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles over Briseis.
Soon after the Louvre put the tiara on public display, many experts questioned its authenticity. Among them was the German archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler, who noted stylistic problems with the design of the tiara and pointed out the lack of signs of aging on the artifact. For several years, the Louvre has defended the authenticity of its treasure. Eventually, the news reached Odessa.
Almost immediately, questions arose about its origins, and the surprisingly good condition of the tiara was a key argument. In 1903, a Russian jeweler from a small town near Odessa named Rukhomovsky told the Louvre researchers that he had made this tiara to order for a certain Mr. Hohmann, who gave him books showing the Greco-Scythian artifacts on which he based his work. It was a gift "for an archaeologist friend."
Eager to acquire this tiara, the Louvre ignored warning signs that could have kept them from shame. There were violations in the manufacture of the tiara. It clearly showed traces of modern tools and modern soldering (albeit skillfully hidden), and the inscription was above the rest of the relief.
The "Golden Tiara of Saitaferna" is still in the possession of the Louvre. In 1954, the museum included her in its Salon of Fakes, along with eight Mona Lises.
Inveterate scammers
In 1962, the management of the Louvre (obviously, little learned by the delusion of their predecessors with the tiara) again acquired a "Scythian" product. This time it was a rhyton similar to Rukhomovsky's rhyton, but made in the shape of a boar's head and decorated with figures of Scythians. And this item had an even greater resemblance to another famous fake rhyton bought by the Russian Historical Museum in 1908. Already a reason to think - after all, apparently, the Louvre rhyton, like the Moscow one, came out of the same hands.
The investigation did not last long. It was soon established that at the end of the 19th century there was a workshop in Ochakov, which was run by the Gokhman brothers. These were falsifiers on a grand scale. Most often they did not bother themselves and their masters, but ordered forgeries on the side (in particular, to the same Rukhomovsky) and sold not only in Russia, but also in Germany, England, Greece, Italy, France … As a rule, they acted through dummy persons.
One of their "commercial agents" was a resourceful peasant woman from the village of Parutino (it is interesting to note that it was located on the site of ancient Olbia!). Visiting a museum or collectors, she offered items made of gold or silver, telling in detail about the circumstances of this “find”. But the Gokhmans understood that this would not be enough for effective deception. Therefore, they confused counterfeits with authentic items found during excavations. And once enterprising adventurers even gave an opportunity to one lover of rarities to unearth a fake, which they had previously hidden in an ancient grave! After that, for a long time, few doubted its authenticity.
Brothers Gokhman also forged ancient inscriptions by carving them on marble
In their "mafia" there were people who perfectly knew ancient history, epigraphic literature, understood the respective languages and styles - so much as to mislead not only amateurs, but also many serious scientists. Even the director of the Odessa Archaeological Museum, Stern, a tireless fighter against counterfeits, fell for the bait and in 1893 bought four Gokhman marble stones with inscriptions. After all, these inscriptions were almost flawless. Sometimes it was possible to expose falsifications only thanks to trifles, for example, not quite correct use of cases. But the original ancient inscriptions were not always grammatically sinless.
Etruscan Terracotta Warriors
The Etruscan Terracotta Warriors are three statues of ancient Etruscans that were bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from New York between 1915 and 1921. They were created by Italian forgers, the brothers Pio and Alfonso Riccardi and three of their six sons.
Riccardi's first known work was a large bronze chariot commissioned from them by the Roman art dealer Domenico Fuschini in 1908. Fuschini informed the British Museum that the chariot had been discovered in an old Etruscan fort near Orvieto. The British Museum bought the chariot and reported its find in 1912.
The Riccardi family, with the help of the sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti, created the statue, later called the Old Warrior. The height of the nude statue below the waist was 202 centimeters. The statue was missing the left thumb and right hand. In 1915, they sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which also bought their next work, The Colossal Head in 1916. The experts decided that the head must have been part of the seven-meter statue.
The third piece of Etruscan Art was developed by Pio's eldest son, Ricardo. In 1918, the Metropolitan Museum bought the Big Warrior sculpture for 40,000 and presented it to the public in 1921.
The three warrior statues were first exhibited together in 1933. In subsequent years, various art historians expressed their suspicions that, based only on the stylistics and artistry of the statues, they could be fakes, but there were no expert opinions confirming the suspicions.
In 1960, a chemical study of lacquer on a sculpture revealed the presence of manganese, an ingredient that the Etrusses never used. The statues were molded, covered with varnish, and then overturned while still unburned to obtain fragments. All this was confirmed by Alfred Fioravanti, who on January 5, 1961, came to the US Consulate in Rome to confess. The counterfeiters lacked the skill and a large furnace to create such large fragments. The fragments were fired, “discovered” and sold, or were collected (“recovered”) and sold. As proof, Fioravanti presented the Old Warrior's finger, which he kept as a souvenir.
For now, the statues are kept out of sight of the public, but still provide a hilarious and sobering lesson that sculptures can be faked.
Ancient persian princess
This mummy was allegedly found after an earthquake near the city of Quetta, Pakistan. The alleged Persian princess was put up for sale on the black market for antiquities for 600 million Pakistani rupees, the equivalent of $ 6 million. On October 19, 2000, the Pakistani authorities were notified of the lot. The "vendors" were charged with violating the country's Antiquities Act, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
It all began in November 2000, when the international press reported an astonishing find: a mummy that was claimed to be the mummy of an ancient Persian princess over 2,600 years old. The mummy was enclosed in a carved stone coffin inside a wooden sarcophagus and was wearing a golden crown and mask. Of course, the Persian princess was immediately hailed as the most important archaeological discovery.
The princess was wrapped in an ancient Egyptian style. All of her internal organs were removed from her body, just like the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. Her body, wrapped in linen, was adorned with gold artifacts, and the inscription on a golden breastplate read: "I am the daughter of the great king Xerxes, I am Rodugun." Archaeologists have suggested that she might be an Egyptian princess married to a Persian prince, or the daughter of Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in Persia. However, mummification was primarily an Egyptian tradition, and mummies have never been found in Persia before.
When the curator from the National Museum of Karachi, Dr. Asma Ibrahim, began his research on the mummy, a completely different story began to emerge. There were some strange mysteries about this ancient princess. The inscriptions on the mummy's breastplate contained some grammatical errors, and there were also some discrepancies in how she was mummified. Several of the meticulous procedures that were customary in Egyptian mummification were not carried out.
All of this indicated that the mummy was not the princess it was supposed to be. It is possible that she was a simple ancient mummy that forgers, trying to increase its value, dressed up in the outfit of a Persian princess. Thus, forensic experts from all over the world analyzed the mummy and its gorgeous external attributes and found that it was a clever fake.
Unfortunately, this mummy had an even darker history. Computed tomography and X-rays of the body inside the mummy revealed that it was not an ancient corpse, but the body of a woman who died in the recent past, and that her neck was broken. An autopsy confirmed that this young woman may indeed have been murdered in order to provide the fraudsters with a body to mummify. A body that they intended to pass off as an ancient mummy and sell for millions of dollars on the international black art market.
Watch out for history
I would like to end with a reference to the Strugatsky brothers. They wrote in The Tale of the Troika: “But what is a fact?.. Is a fact a phenomenon or an act, witnessed by eyewitnesses? However, eyewitnesses can be biased, selfish or simply ignorant … Is the fact an act or phenomenon, attested in documents? But the documents can be forged or fabricated … That's right, and if we talk about historical facts, when there are no living witnesses left, such hoaxes are innumerable …
As we just saw, it is not only documents that are forged. And it is more than likely that a huge number of forgeries remain unrevealed. In short, here you can hang a road sign "Caution, history!"