How to prove my Written Artefact is not a forgery?

Authentication

Alba Fedeli

Inauthenticity of written artefacts can be perpetrated through different forms and for different purposes. Although some scholars assign them different meanings, the terms ‘fakes’ and ‘forgeries’ are often used interchangeably. For instance, Craddock (2009: 11) uses the category of forgery for “a whole new work in imitation of something else” and the category of fake for “an object that has been altered such that it appears to be something else, usually more valuable”. Both terms refer to inauthentic artefacts produced with the intention of deceiving potential buyers or readers. Forgeries differ from copies, replicas, or imitations.

A forgery is identified as such when there is a false claim of identification that experts can detect. Umberto Eco argues that forgery is based on the concepts of unicity and identity. The claimant asserts that an object is produced, used, or displayed “with the intention of making someone believe that it is indiscernibly identical with another unique object” (Eco 1992: 609). This is a false claim of identity. Eco provides a comprehensive list of possible types of forgery (i.e., false identification) and assigns the task of verifying or falsifying claims of identity to the figure of the judge, i.e., the expert. The experts developed strong arguments for identifying forgeries but have weaker criteria for proving the authenticity of artefacts (Eco 1992). Only a multidisciplinary approach to the complex nature and history of a written artefact can reveal that it is not what it claims to be.

The interest in ancient written artefacts and more generally, antiquities, as well as their faking and forging dates back to the Renaissance when formal collections were established (Craddock 2009). The market generated by collectors has made forgers’ activities flourish. In investigating the inauthenticity of art forgeries, “scientific investigation is not a stand-alone entity in authentication studies. It has to be supported by provenance proofs, an “unbroken chain of custody” and by the confirmations of art historian regarding the stylistic and semantic integrity that ascertains the artist’s expression. In addition, all this evidence needs to be supported by cooperative ethical and legal measurements in order to avoid the contamination of the art market with forgeries” (Ciortan et al. 2022: 168).

When authenticating a written artefact, a coordinated approach involves observing and visually examining the historical object using various methodologies developed in each specific discipline of manuscript studies. These include palaeographic and philological methods, such as assessing stylistic and semantic integrity, as well as the examination of orthographic, morphological and syntactic integrity in comparison with the model built from the originals. In addition, an art historical approach and collection history should be considered. The multidisciplinary approach integrates the observation results and collection history details with the scientific analysis of the chemical composition and ageing processes of the materials present in the written artefact such as ink composition, writing support, and dating. Thus, by following the script rules and identifying peculiarities in both the palaeographic execution and spelling of words, as well as traces of the developmental stages of their grammar, the authenticity of any written culture’s earliest witnesses can be determined. Material analysis can also detect anachronistic elements in the composition of the written artefact. If a forgery claims to be an authentic production from centuries ago, scientific analysis can detect anachronistic pigments or reveal the date of the writing support, for example, by radiocarbon dating the death of the animal whose skin was used for manufacturing the parchment. Methods of digital authenticity have been developed and tested, for example, to verify differences in the distribution of ink grain (Noshy et al. 2020). The arguments against the authenticity of (forged) written artefacts can provide forgers with knowledge to improve their forgeries creating a sort of loop of “better sensors, better forgers” (Ciortan et al. 2022).

The authenticity of the materiality of the writing support can be deceived by using ‘original’ old materials of little economic value that are reused for writing supposedly earlier works. An example is the Stanford University Library MISC 1613, i.e., “counterfeit manuscripts designed to look like early manuscripts in Kufic script”. Despite the trick of using recycled parchment and creating a Qurʾānic palimpsest fragment in Kufic script (i.e., from the first centuries of Islam), the deception failed due to the forger’s lack of mastery of the script style, the lack of prestige of the source who offers the artefact for sale on eBay and the expert’s knowledge in identifying the provenance of the reused parchment leaf (Witkam 2014). This artefact reveals the interconnection between the forgery and its sociocultural context. Forgeries, fakes, and other forms of falsification of artefacts are a response to market demand and expression of the knowledge about manuscript cultures. Looking at the Kufic manuscript, the script style is ‘curious’, but it appears to have been created by imitation of original objects despite the poor execution. Forgers of old manuscripts commonly make mistakes such as confusing letter shapes with their modern shape. In Stanford MISC 1613, there is a lack of knowledge regarding original letter shapes and the proper splitting of words over two lines. While the other inauthentic features are consistent, the distribution of vowel-dots is unrealistic and inconsistent. This observation highlights the fact that this research topic is still in its early stages at an academic level and unknown to the wider public.

The idiosyncrasies and complexities of early written artefacts could be generated by using artificial intelligence and then imitated in manufacturing the object as already happened for artworks and visual communications defined ‘deep fakes’ based on generative adversarial networks (GAN) for generative AI (Ghizzoni-Musiani 2021, Ciortan et al. 2022). In a continuous loop of better sensors, better forgers, the ‘perfect’ forgery will continue to be discovered only by a multidisciplinary approach.

As Eco pointed out, it is more challenging to investigate the less common case of written artefacts that are perceived and presented as forgeries but are actually authentic. To address the question of how to prove that my written artefact is not a forgery, it is necessary to trace and verify its source and provenance. In authentication studies, the art market often delegates authority to the experts (Ciortan et al. 2022). Provenance information possesses an aura of its own because “knowledge of such provenance holds the capability of psychologically altering the viewers perception of the work itself” (Murphy 2021: 225). The opposite situation can occur. The authenticity of the artefact is doubted due to the lack of a pedigree of previous owners whereas it is authentic. An example is the palimpsest Cambridge University Library Or.1287, acquired by Agnes Smith-Lewis in 1895. It was misattributed to Alphonse Mingana who co-authored the 1914 edition with the owner. An argument was made that Birmingham, the industrial city where Mingana lived, had the technical capability to produce fake objects. Despite the artefact originated from Sinai and belonged to Saint Catherine’s monastery, the alleged provenance altered the perceived image and value of the object, stripping it of the aura possessed by originals. As a forgery might be shaped by what its audience wants it to be (Lavender-Bergström 2023), the same can be said for the misrepresentation of an authentic artefact. The ‘Mingana palimpsest’ was shaped by what its audience in the 1910s and 1920s wants it to be, until the object’s location and provenance were recently proved (Fedeli 2011).

Finally, forgeries exist due to the dolus malus of the claimant, making it difficult to assess the intentions of potential forgers, such as in the case of colophons added to manuscripts to attribute the work to notable figures. Colophon and attribution can create provenance information and an aura surrounding the object. If the colophon does not claim to have been written in an earlier period but asserts only that the manuscript is attributed to a notable figure, some scholars consider these colophons forgeries due to political, cultural or religious reasons, while others see them as historical documents that attest to the later socio-cultural context and knowledge of manuscripts that do not possess a pedigree. The second scenario aligns with the ‘false ascription in error’ listed in Eco’s 1992 work, where “[t]he Claimant […] claims in good faith that the Object B is identical with the Object A”. When writing genuine, spurious, or deceiving provenance documentation, the question about intentions remains a complex issue distinct from the authenticity of the written artefact itself.