Thread by @Tweetistorian, A thread on the most (in)famous antiquities dealer in 19th-century Palestine, Moses [...]

A thread on the most (in)famous antiquities dealer in 19th-century Palestine, Moses Wilhelm Shapira

In the 1870s and early 1880s, Shapira had a shop on Christian St. (now generally called Christian Quarter Rd.), looking out on Hezekiah& #39;s Pool.

Photochrom image c. 1890s via Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002725002/">https://www.loc.gov/pictures/...

We know the exact location of the shop thanks to John Marco Allegro and Shlomo Guil (working from a novel by Shapira& #39;s daughter that describes it).

Shapira primarily sold tourist and pilgrim souvenirs: books, photographs, articles of olive-wood, albums of pressed flowers.
The shop was highly regarded for these items -- Baedeker& #39;s (1876) recommended it as the best in Jerusalem.

But what made Shapira famous were his antiquities and manuscripts.
Shapira sold hundreds of medieval & early modern manuscripts to the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Royal Library in Berlin . . .
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Or_1482&index=29">https://www.bl.uk/manuscrip...

. . . But he also sold literally thousands of fake antiquities.
Here& #39;s a stone he claimed in 1871 had an inscription commemorating Moses& #39;s conquest of Moab -- maybe written by Moses himself!
(Albert Socin in ZDMG 27, 1873)

Except that it was a Nabatean inscription . . . and a fake copy of one that had been published twice already:
Warren in PEF Quarterly Statement 1870
M. Levy in ZDMG 25, 1871

Here& #39;s the coffin of Samson (yes, the biblical Samson!) Shapira tried to entice the PEF with in 1877

(Clermont-Ganneau, Les fraudes archéologiques, 1885)
~mp

Shapira told one customer he had a Greek copy of the Bible from the time of Jesus; he told another that he had "Moabite parchments" describing their gods.
All made-up stories.
~mp

And between 1872 and 1877 he offered some 2,000 "Moabite" pots and clay sculptures, many with inscriptions -- all of them fake.
He managed to convince the Royal Museum in Berlin to buy about 1700 of these.
~mp https://www.flickr.com/photos/palestineexplorationfund/5226880822/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/pa...

Display of so-called ‘Moabite’ or ‘Shapira’ forgeries on sale in Shapira’s shop in Jerusalem: front...

|See also PEF/P/5112 for the reverse view of these items.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/palestineexplorationfund/5226880822/

But Shapira is most famous of all for his supposed Moabite Deuteronomy that he tried to sell to the British Museum in 1883 -- failing to tell them that German scholars had already rejected it as fake.
The English would soon agree with them.
~mp

Yet, despite the scholarly consensus of 1883, and the fact that these Deuteronomy strips are now missing, and Shapira& #39;s dubious track record -- the strips periodically surface when someone tries to argue that they were in fact authentic. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/arts/bible-deuteronomy-discovery.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/1...

Is a Long-Dismissed Forgery Actually the Oldest Known Biblical Manuscript?

In 1883, a manuscript found near the Dead Sea caused an international sensation. It was denounced as a fake, and soon vanished. But what if it was the only known source text for the Hebrew Bible?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/arts/bible-deuteronomy-discovery.html

If you& #39;re interested in hearing more on Shapira& #39;s career, I& #39;ll be giving a public Zoom lecture on April 29th, 7pm Norway time (see the link for registration)
Join if you can!
~mp
https://www.uia.no/arrangementer/little-shop-of-horrors-the-career-of-moses-shapira-bookseller-antiquarian-and-forger">https://www.uia.no/arrangeme...

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