3/25/2023 0 Comments Slomo museumTwo of his most famous inscriptions are the so-called Moussaieff Ostraca, one known as the Three Shekels ostracon and the other as the Widow’s Plea ostracon. No doubt Moussaieff has purchased some forgeries in his lifetime of collecting, but none of his most important inscriptions has been so proved. In mid-2013, bent and frail but clear of mind, he told me he would leave his collection to the Israel Museum, the Bible Lands Museum and a third museum that he had not yet chosen. He professed not to care what happened to his collection on his death. He was deaf to those who urged him to make provision for his collection on his death, or so he claimed. Plus, he provides behind-the-scenes analysis of the trial and its key players.Īlthough Shlomo enlisted scholars to publish some categories of artifacts in his collection, for the most part it was simply placed in vitrines roughly sorted by category, unpublished, unstudied, uncataloged, housed in room after room of his homes or piled on the floor or hung on the wall, often in disarray-mosaics, inscriptions, tombstones, sculptures, an ancient synagogue lintel, altars, rings, metal objects, magic incantation bowls huge things and small things from every ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern culture you can think of. In our free eBook James, Brother of Jesus: The Forgery Trial of the Century, Hershel Shanks explains why he believes the now-famous “James Ossuary” inscription is authentic. a 1 These studies were mostly about items in Moussaieff’s collection.Īfter more than five years, the “forgery trial of the century” concluded in a Jerusalem courtroom and defendants Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch were acquitted of all forgery charges. Lambert, Mark Geller, Aren Maeir, Peter van der Veen, Irit Ziffer, Ada Yardeni, Bezalel Porten, Meir Lubetski, André Lemaire, Dan Barag, Michael Heltzer, Robert Deutsch, Edward Lipiński and others. In 2003 a festschrift (a collection of scholarly articles) was published in Moussaieff’s honor with contributions by a roster of prominent scholars that included W.G. Numerous highly respected scholars published books and articles based on his collection, especially regarding the inscriptions on ostraca (pottery sherds), seals and bullae, jars, arrowheads, weights, etc. (Of course, they found nothing.) At other times, the IAA courted him. On one occasion it had Moussaieff and his daughter searched for contraband at the airport. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) had a different, often contradictory, attitude toward him. Major museums in Israel, including the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum-both in Jerusalem-displayed items from his collection, including, for example, elegant glass fashioned by Ennion, the greatest of the Greek glassmakers, of which Moussaieff owned more than either the Sorbonne or the British Museum-to say nothing of the Metropolitan in New York.īar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv awarded Moussaieff an honorary doctorate in gratitude for his gift of rare Jewish mystical texts (kabbalah) and doubtless in the hope that more would come from Shlomo’s Judaica collection. Moussaieff owned more Ennion glass than the world’s major museums. glassmaker from the Phoenician city of Sidon. “ENNION MADE IT.” Moussaieff inspects a glass amphora signed by Ennion, the famous first-century C.E. Sonia Halliday/The Moussaieff Collection, London Other scholars welcomed the opportunity to bring to the public rare and often important artifacts, especially inscriptions, which, they argued, were of great significance to our understanding of ancient history and would otherwise be lost to us. ![]() ![]() Many scholars despised him, especially archaeologists who spend their lives digging with a toothbrush to unearth details of our past that are sometimes rich in meaning but mostly unimpressive physically. There was no end to what he would buy, although his collection of Judaica was an especial focus of his last years. If he didn’t buy it, someone else would, was his credo. He had no concern for whether the object was looted or not. And antiquities dealers, both legitimate and otherwise, would beat a path to his door both on Grosvenor Square in London and on the entire 14th floor of the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya. “Pay and they will bring you,” he would say. To the very end, he never stopped buying. Shlomo Moussaieff of Herzliya, Israel, and London, England, who owned the world’s largest private collection of Near Eastern antiquities, surpassing that of many major museums, died in Israel on June 29, 2015, at the age of 92. Shlomo Moussaieff, who owned the world’s largest private collection of Near Eastern antiquities, passed away in the summer of 2015 at the age of 92.
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