Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-03-04
THE LATEST DECEPTION.
Exposure of n Colossal Svyindle known
as the shapiro Collection.

as the shapiro Collection.
From the London Daily News.
The exposure of the colossal swindle
known as the Shapiro collection of idols,
vessels and pottery with ancient inscriptions
from Moab, adds another and instructive
chapter to the history of forgery and credu-
lily. 1t was an ingenious combination Of
forgeries, appealing at once to the scholar,
the Archaeological and the numismatist. To
this last is offered certain clay disks, which
might be coins and might be tresser9 to
the second it showed vessels of strange and
uncouth shape unknown to Egyptian, Greek
or Etruscan art, with figures illustrative of a
mythology long since persisted; while to
the scholar it gave inscriptions by the nun
dred in that Phoenician character in which
King Mesha wrote, and of which 80 few
specimens remain. Unfortunately it is
through these very inscriptions that the plot
has been brought to light. The forger was
little too clever, and yet not clever enough i;
for his inscriptions, though doubtless in the
Phonician character, could not by any in
genuity be separated into Hebrew words.
1t is disadvantage not common among
literary forgeries. most of which can at least
be read. The great Psalmanzar, who pre-
tended to be native of Formosa, invented
language, an alphabet, and literature for
himself. Chatterton made his own method
of spelling an impossible old English dia-
lect The celebrated Annius of Viterbo,
who pretended to have found the lost works
of Sanchoniathon and Manetho, of whom
he knew as much DIR. Primrose's unfor-
tunate friend, at least produced something
that might be read; and these travellers who
describe countries they have never seen, and
IRON their arm-chairs pursue the winding
of the Orinoco or the Indus, do give their
readers printed matter in Ineligible YER
nacular. The author of the Shapiro collec-
ton, however, could not be read at all, and
the only literary purpose he has served
has been to stimulate the paper trade by
causing the consumption of many reams in
controversy. He has secured another OBJ
ject, to be sure, and one deeply at his own
heart, namely, the transfer of good sum
from the gorged money-bags of Berlin to
the lean and hungry Golfers of Jerusalem.
Let US briefly give the history of this re-
markable case. 1t is now about two Years
since it began to be rumored that certain
Jewish Protestant convert, living in Jerusa-
lem, was receiving from an Arab small guam
titles of pottery, vases broken and entire,
| figures of animals, and rudely executed
statuettes of men and women. Presently it
was discovered that on many OF these things
were inscriptions in that old Phenician
| character, the direct ancestor of our own, in
which the MOabite stone was written. They
were evidently ancient, being incrusted with
layer of saltpetre-the natural effect of
time and damp on earthen ware their
form, grotesque and rude, indicated the
earliest stage of art; the emblems which
adorned them pointed to a cult which was
apparently a mixture of astronomical and
nature worships; in the seven punctures
which adorn the figures were the seven
planets; in the earthen calf the reference
was obvious to the brazen calf. Here was
the Dea Syria:
"Ashtoreth, whom the Phanicians called
Asterte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns !"
and here was the god of King Mesha
'' Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons"
These things, it was commended, could not
be forged by an Arab .; each specimen would
cost too much to make; and the manifest
antiquity of the whole, as proved by the
saltpetre, was by itself sufficient argu-
ment in their favor. Notwithstanding all
these things, English archeologists refused
to give in their adhesion. They stithy
maintained that any genuine Phenician in
scription could be read ; that it would be
written in certain forms of letters already
ascertained and they pointed not only to
forms which devlated from the recognized
type, but also to a bilingual inscription on
vase, which would have been invaluable
but for the fact that in neither character
could it be read, while the two characters
could not, by any possibility, be used on the
same jar, except at an interval of many
hundred years. But then came fresh in
telligence Two German travellers, with
Mr.. Shapiro, crossed into Moab and dug for
themselves, finding bits of pottery like
those in the collection. Curiously enough.
even this proof failed to convince the stiff
necked English. The German Govern
ment, however, unwilling to lose so great
prize, bought the whole collection for H.,
900 and had it transferred to Berlin, the
museum of which city it now adorns. A
second collection was Immediately commenc.
ed, and had been going On with commenda-
BILE zeal and rapidity until the goth day of
December last sudden and disastrous stop
page to the whole business was caused by
M. Gannau's exposure of the fact that it
was forgery from beginning to end. He
has sent home an account, which will be
supplemented by fuller statement, but
which, meantime, is as amusing and as
minute DIS d udfrdtIVe ny OeIoIe. M. Oal4-
neau possessed, to begin with, certain
knowledge which placed the unhappy ar
fist, the forger, at disadvantage; for he
knew what we may call the handwriting of
the inscriptions. "These," he said, "are
the work of my old friend Selm ell CARL"
and on returning to Jerusalem for the
Palestine exploration fund, he resolved that
his first work should be to bestow publicity
upon a modest but meritorious designer.
He reflected that to manufacture pottery re-
quires the assistance of a pottery, and so,
without exciting the suspicious of selim, he
began by visiting in turn all the half-dozen
potteries in Jerusalem, and making the &C
quaintance Of the workmen. The result
was that he speedily found the man who
had assisted Selim, and has been enabled to
send over as graphic a confession as we re-
member TO have read. In it we see the twi-
light procession carrying grisiy Moloch and
his band from the workshop to the potter
we STE the artful dipping in the saltpetre
which should give the gods of the Moabites
premature and precocious age" to make
them grow DID, said honest Selim; and we
are told of the scrupulous care with which
any tell-tale fragment was gathered. What