First Person: A Scepter from the Temple?

In the previous BAR, we discussed at some length whether the inscribed ivory pomegranate was authentic, and we concluded that it was.^a We will not repeat that here. This article will be confined to the reasons we are confident that it is authentic.

But first a note on authenticity. To be precise, we should say we are confident it is not a forgery—for no inscription can ever be proven to be authentic. Or to put it slightly differently, an inscription can never be proven to be authentic. There is always some as-yet unknown test that would unmask the forger. Even an object excavated in a professional excavation can be a forgery; some worker, for example, may have salted the forgery in an excavation. Or it is even possible that the archaeologist who heads the excavation is a forger who planted the forged object in an excavation square to gain fame.

But let’s be reasonable. There is always a technical 007 possibility that an excavated inscription is a forgery. But that’s highly, highly, highly unlikely. So we will speak loosely—and when an object is shown beyond a reasonable doubt not to be a forgery—we will say that it is authentic even though there is this remote chance that it is a forgery.