Shaun Greenhalgh - How They Were Caught

How They Were Caught

Perhaps buoyed up by the fact that they had so successfully duped the experts the Greenhalghs tried again, using the same Silverton Park provenance. They produced what were purportedly three Assyrian reliefs of soldier and horses, from the Palace of Sennacherib in 600 BC.

The British Museum examined them in November 2005, concluded that they were genuine, and expressed an interest in buying one of them, which seemed to match a drawing by A. H. Layard in its collection. However, when two of the reliefs were submitted to Bonhams auction house, its antiquities consultant Richard Falkiner spotted "an obvious fake". Bonhams consulted with the British Museum about various suspicious aspects, and the Museum then spotted several unlikely anomalies. The horses' reins were "not consistent" or "atypical" with respect to other Assyrian reliefs; and the cuneiform inscription contained a spelling mistake, an absent diacritical mark, which was considered extremely unlikely in a piece "destined for the eyes of the king". These concerns became full blown suspicion when George seemed too willing to part with the items at a low price. The Museum contacted the Arts and Antiquities Unit of Scotland Yard, and eighteen months later the family was arrested.