SMC 20

Fakes and forgeries are objects of fascination. This volume contains a series of thirteen articles devoted to fakes and forgeries of written artefacts from the beginnings of writing in Mesopotamia to modern China. The studies emphasise the subtle distinctions conveyed by an established vocabulary relating to the reproduction of ancient artefacts and production of artefacts claiming to be ancient: from copies, replicas and imitations to fakes and forgeries. Fakes are often a response to a demand from the public or scholarly milieu, or even both. The motives behind their production may be economic, political, religious or personal – aspiring to fame or simply playing a joke. Fakes may be revealed by combining the study of their contents, codicological, epigraphic and palaeographic analyses, and scientific investigations. However, certain famous unsolved cases still continue to defy technology today, no matter how advanced it is. Nowadays, one can find fakes in museums and private collections alike; they abound on the antique market, mixed with real artefacts that have often been looted. The scientific community’s attitude to such objects calls for ethical reflection.

FrontmatterI

ContentsV

PrefaceVII

Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts: An Introduction1
by Cécile Michel and Michael Friedrich

Part I: From Copies to Forgeries

Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day25
by Cécile Michel

How Writing Came about in Glozel, France61
by Catherine Breniquet

Venerable Copies: The Afterlife of a Fragment of a Letter by Wang Xizhi (303–361)77
by Uta Lauer

Fakes and Islamic Manuscripts89
by François Déroche

Part II: Forgers and Their Motives

Fake Ancient Roman Inscriptions and the Case of Wolfgang Lazius (1514–1565)101
by Ekkehard Weber

Michel Fourmont and His Forgeries123
by Olivier Gengler

Sicilian Sweets. The Fanciful Frauds of Wily Father Vella149
by Jan Just Witkam

Et tout le reste est littérature, or: Abraham Firkowicz, the Writer with a Chisel173
by Dan Shapira

Supplement: The Forgery of Colophons and Ownership of Hebrew Codices and Scrolls by Abraham Firkowicz195
by Malachi Beit-Arié

Part III: Identifying Fakes

La invención del Sacromonte: How and Why Scholars Debated about the Lead Books of Granada for Two Hundred Years209
by Claudia Colini

Identifying Fakes: Three Case Studies with Examples from Different Types of Written Artefacts263
by Jost Gippert

Detection of Fakes: The Merits and Limits of Non-Invasive Materials Analysis281
by Ira Rabin and Oliver Hahn

Producing and Identifying Forgeries of Chinese Manuscripts291
by Michael Friedrich 

Contributors337