First Person: Israel Antiquities Authority Suspects BAR Editor of Colluding with Forgers

It was a surreal experience. My long-time colleague, Suzanne Singer, and I were in London this past July for the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (International Assyriological Congress) at the British Museum. Taking a break from lectures with titles like “Ishtar of Nineveh’s Collaboration with Ishtar of Arbela in an Assurbanipal Hymn” and “Trade Relations Between Mari and Hazor,” we decided to pay a visit to Shlomo Moussaieff, who has one of the world’s great collections of antiquities relating to the Bible and the ancient Near East. I know Shlomo well because I interviewed him for a profile in BAR^a and subsequently published several articles about objects in his collection. Shlomo graciously invited us to come over.