Monthly Archives: June 2012

Further Jordan Codices Update

David Elkington has posted fourteen more images of some of the codices. These he says were sent along from Hassan Saeda, and he does not comment on their authenticity. Many of the images below appear to be different shots of the same plate, whether obverse and reverse sides, or just different angles. Note that the codex I’ve designated Codex LXXIV is quite clearly genetically related to our earlier Codex XI, which was shared with Philip Davies and published in the PEQ article from last year. The same image was obviously used to produce the portrait on both codices.

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Although the iconography and the script is somewhat different in some of these codices, several of the codices are identical to earlier obvious forgeries, and there are enough consistencies in the script and the composition in all the codices to conclude they all come from the same forger or forgers. For instance, note that the date palm image in Codex LXXXII is exactly identical to the date palms I discuss here. It obviously came from the same die. The script appears to have been manipulated to appear more diverse and “cursive,” but many of the letters are identical to those appearing on the demonstrable forgeries. Codices LXXXIII and LXXXIV obviously used a portion of the same die for the fronds, the circular border, the inferior dividing line, and all the script above that line (!), and just used a different die for the imagery within the circuler border. As an illustration, compare the following three details from the codices:


Jordan Codices Update

Recently a number of new posts have been added to David Elkington’s Facebook page. He has two “book reviews” up, as well as comments about the recent Temple Studies Symposium, but most significantly, he has a series of new photos posted. He claims that smugglers are making off with the codices and that the Jordanian government is reluctant to take action because of bloggers who are unwittingly aiding  the smugglers as we work to discredit the codices. A particularly bizarre question is asked by Elkington in this discussion:

The one question we would like to pose is that if they are forgeries, then they are worthless. Why then are they still the subject of illicit smuggling operations?

No item on earth carries inherent monetary value. An item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and not everyone is aware that these are forgeries. There are many people out there willing to pay for items like these.

The photos provided really add little to what is already known about the codices, although many of them are quite out of focus or tiny:

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