The inscription on an ancient limestone ossuary thought to link the artifact to the brother of Jesus Christ was declared a fake by a committee of archeologists and geologists Wednesday.
The words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" are a modern-day forgery with no link to New Testament figures, Israel's Antiquities Authority said.
The ossuary, used to inter human bones in ancient times, had been hailed by some in the archeology world as an extraordinary discovery. It had been undergoing tests at the direction of the Authority since it had been returned from Toronto in January, where it had been on display for seven weeks, drawing 100,000 visitors.
Israeli officials on Wednesday described the inscription, as well as another purported archeological marvel, the "Yoash inscription," as "forgeries."
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"The inscriptions, possibly inscribed in two separate stages, are not authentic," the Antiquities Authority said in a statement. The James inscription cut through the ancient limestone box's patina, a thin coating acquired with age, the experts said, proving the writing was not ancient.
"The inscription appears new, written in modernity by someone attempting to reproduce ancient written characters," the Antiquities Authority statement said.
However, the head curator of an exhibition of the ossuary at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum earlier this year disagrees with the committee's report. "At the moment our position [based on] our own examination suggests the inscription and box are authentic, Dr. Ed Keall told globeandmail.com.
The officials in Israel reached their conclusions after intensive exams by several committees of experts, the authority said.
But tests done at the ROM in Toronto in early January led Dr. Keall and his team to different conclusions.
"My position is that a team of us felt we were looking at something that was genuine," he said.
The technicians in Toronto looked at how the box was preserved on all sides, they examined the inscriptions under strong powers of magnification and they examined a crack in one side that they found to be deeply pitted.
(The ossuary developed cracks en route to Toronto from Israel. The cracks extended through the latter parts of the inscription).
Dr. Keall said in his opinion, the inscription itself looked to have been cleaned, accounting for the removal of the patina. He said he was convinced there were enough varieties in the level and depth of the inscription that would be impossible for a forger to reproduce.
As well, the ROM team did tests on the bottom of the ossuary where it was damp, and found a high phosphate level, which would suggest that bones decomposed there, he said. "Little things like that [led to the belief] that it's real."
Oded Golan, the Israeli owner of the ossuary, also dismissed the officials' findings.
"I am certain that the committee is wrong regarding its conclusions," Mr. Golan said Wednesday. He had previously complained that the committee had "preconceived notions."
The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Jerusalem police launched separate investigations into the two items after Mr. Golan offered one for sale. Mr. Golan said he bought the James ossuary in the mid-1970s from an antiquities dealer in the Old City of Jerusalem for about $270 (Canadian) but he said he could not remember the dealer's name.
The Yoash inscription, meanwhile, is a shoebox-sized tablet from about the ninth century BC inscribed with 15 lines of ancient Hebrew with instructions for maintaining the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
When it was first disclosed two years ago, it caused a stir in the archeological world, with some experts calling it a rare confirmation of biblical narrative.
But a biblical language professor, Avigdor Horowitz, who served on one of the investigating committees, said not one inscribed passage on the tablet was without a linguistic mistake.
"The person who wrote the inscription was a person who thinks in modern Hebrew," he told a news conference in Jerusalem. "A person thinking in biblical Hebrew would see it as ridiculous."
The existence of the James ossuary was disclosed last November at a news conference in Washington by the Biblical Archaeology Review. It was valued at between $1.35-million and $2.7-million (Canadian), based on the claimed link with Jesus.
Robert Eisenman, who wrote a book on Jesus' brother, studied the box and said the writing on the box, written in two different hands, along with the artifact's sudden appearance, made its authenticity questionable.
"I always considered the timing of the James ossuary very odd and worrisome," he said. "There was a spate of books on James and his importance in 1997 and 1998, then the box appeared."
Dr. Keall said in this situation, the full truth may never be revealed.
"It's sort of like the shroud of Turin," he said. "It won't go away either."
