Authenticity Examination of the Jehoash Inscription

A black stone tablet bearing an engraved Hebrew inscription in ancient Phoenician script has been attributed to the period of King Jehoash of Judah's repairs of the First Temple in Jerusalem. The results of a previous mineralogical and geochemical study suggested that the inscription could have been genuine, leading to the hypothesis that the tablet is a royal inscription that was placed in the Temple. However, a majority of philologists, palaeographers and epigraphers seems to agree that the inscription is highly problematic and should be regarded as a forgery. The present study focuses on the tablet's petrography and the oxygen isotopic composition (δ¹⁸O) of the secondary materials (patina). The micromorphologic, petrographic and oxygen isotopic composition of the patina covering the letters and surface of the inscription present numerous anomalies that clearly indicate that it was artificially created in recent times and as such is a modern forgery.