Moses Shapira - Moabite Forgeries

Moabite Forgeries

Shapira became interested in biblical artifacts after the appearance of the so-called Moabite Stone, the Mesha Stele. He witnessed the schism and interest around it and may have had a hand in negotiations between German, British and French representatives. France eventually got the fragments of the original stone.

Shapira proceeded to create many fake Moabite artifacts – clay figurines, large human heads, clay vessels and erotic pieces, with inscriptions that had been copied from the Mesha Stele. His associate was a Christian Arab potter Salim al-Kari. To modern scholars, the products seem clumsy – inscriptions do not translate to anything legible, for one – but at the time there was little with which to compare them. He even organized an expedition to Moab where he had his Bedouin associates bury more forgeries. Some scholars began to base theories on these pieces.

Since German archaeologists had not gained possession of the Moabite Stone, they rushed to buy the Shapira Collection before their rivals. Berlin's Altes Museum bought 1700 artifacts with the cost of 22,000 thalers in 1873. Other private collectors followed suit. One of them was Horatio Kitchener, a British military officer, who bought eight pieces in his own expense. Shapira was able to move to Aga Rashid (modern-day Ticho House), outside Jerusalem city walls with his wife and two daughters.

Still various people, including a French scholar and diplomat Charles Clermont-Ganneau, had their doubts. Clermont-Ganneau suspected Salim al-Kari, questioned him and found people who supplied him with clay. He published his findings in Athenaeum newspaper in London and declared them forgeries, a conclusion with which other scholars concurred (cf. Emil Friedrich Kautzsch and Albert Socin, Die Echtheit der moabitischen Altertümer geprüft, 1876). Shapira defended his collection vigorously until his rivals presented more evidence against them. He made Salim al-Kari the scapegoat, played the role of innocent victim, and continued to do a considerable trade especially in Hebrew manuscripts from Yemen.