The Jehoash Inscription is the name of a controversial artifact claimed to have been discovered in a construction site or Muslim cemetery near the Temple Mount of Jerusalem in 2001.
בברכה [I am Jehoash, son of A-] -haziah, k[ing of Ju-] dah, and I performed the work on th[is ho]us- e. When men's gener- osity was full in the land and in the wilder- ness, and in all the cities of Judah, to give money as sacred donations abundantly, to buy stone and juniper wood and Edomite copper, performing the work in good faith–then I ma- de the repair of the Temple, and of the encircling wa- lls, and the storied structure, and the lattice- s, and the spiral stairs, and the re- cesses, and the doors.
Israeli magazine Maariv correspondent Boaz Gaon reported that the Israel Antiquities Authority Theft Unit had focused their attention on the "Jehoash Inscription" as expensive bait to defraud a prominent collector in London.
Israeli investigators linked a phony business card and a phone number to a Tel Aviv private eye who admitted that his employer was Oded Golan, the collector who owned the James Ossuary (another artifact of uncertain authenticity).
A March 19, 2003, article in Maariv reported that a court had issued a search warrant for Golan's apartment, office and rented warehouse.
Police then conducted a new search in a storage space that Golan had rented in Ramat Gan but had not originally disclosed to them.
There the police found scores of artifacts, ancient seals and other inscriptions in various stages of production along with the tools to create the imitations.
On March 14, 2012 Jerusalem Judge Aharon Farkash stated "that there is no evidence that any of the major artifacts were forged, and that the prosecution failed to prove their accusations beyond a reasonable doubt.
"[5] However, the court also ruled that it was unable to conclude that the Jehoash Inscription was authentic and noted that an associate of the accused forgers had confessed to aiding in its fabrication.
[6][7] Limor Livnat, Israeli Minister of Culture, appointed a scientific commission to study the Jehoash tablet, as well as the James Ossuary.
In a press conference in Jerusalem on June 18, 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority commission declared the inscription a modern forgery.
A report, dated September 2005, was prepared by Wolfgang E. Krumbein of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany: The grainy whitish patina with yellow and grey particles embedded existing prior to 2005 and documented by the Israel Antiquities Authority as "James Bond" material looks like Meyer cement used around 1900–1920 at the Acropolis Monuments in Athens and other places.
These materials do not exist in photographic documents prior to 2005.Krumbein concludes that "Our preliminary investigations cannot prove the authenticity of the three objects beyond any doubt.
In an article published in 2007, Professor Chaim Cohen of Ben Gurion University wrote, "both the nature of these contributions and the fact that they are completely new do support my long-standing position concerning the authenticity of the YI [Jehoash Inscription] as follows: In order to remove any possible doubt concerning my position as regards the authenticity of the YI, I wish to emphasize at the outset that I do not know whether or not this inscription is genuine.
"[10] Prof. Ronny Reich who played a key role in the widely publicized case of the antiquities collector accused of fraud, and was one of the founders of the Israel Antiquities Authority stated "Finally, allow me to play devil's advocate and say that the inscription appears to me to be authentic, because it's hard for me to believe that a forger (or group of forgers) could be so knowledgeable in all aspects of the inscription − that is, the physical, paleographic, linguistic and biblical ones − that they could produce such an object.
[13] The Supreme Court ruled against the Israel Antiquities Authority, returning the tablet and ossuary to Golan, who intends to publicly display both.
Greenstein, a Semitic philologist, contends that the inscription contains "anomalies—spellings and linguistic usages that did not jibe with what we know of ancient Hebrew writing and language."