The Toronto Star has yesterday published an article updating the legal battle slowly unfolding in an Israeli courtroom. While the Israel Antiquities Authority appears to be using the case as a way to stifle the legitimate antiquities trade in that country, the subtext of the case revolves around the authenticity of what may be the first physical archaeological object with a direct link to Jesus Christ.
At issue, is the so-called James Ossuary, a limestone burial box used to hold the bones of the deceased in the Holyland of the first century. Everyone agrees the box is ancient. Everyone agrees that the first part of the one-line inscription "James son of Joseph" is ancient.
The ossuary, or more specifically that one three-word phrase, was initially declared a fake by the Israel Antiquities Authority after it was exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2002. The dispute has grown beyond the Israeli court system and involves museums, archaeologists, scientists, magazine publishers, and specialist scholars of all description.
The trial, according to the Toronto Star, on hold for more than a month due to scheduling delays that plague the Israeli court system, resumes Tuesday with the testimony of Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel whose examinations of the ossuary helped lead to charges be laid.
With barely one-quarter of the prosecution's 124 witnesses called since the trial began last fall, and the defense team expected to call at least as many witnesses, the case is expect to take years to make its way through the court system, the paper said.
Click to read the Toronto Star's article. Click here for more on the James Ossuary from Wikipedia.
AUGUSTAN HEAD FOUND AT NEW VILLA
Rome, May 10 - A marble head
of the Emperor Augustus has been found at a large and well-appointed
Roman villa just discovered outside the capital. The head,
practically a bas-relief, shows the emperor in profile in his middle
years. It will shortly be taken to the newly refurbished Roman
Antiquities Museum at Palazzo Massimo near Termini Station to be
shown to the public. Also travelling from the dig site - north of
Rome, not far from Hadrian's great villa - will be some 100 gold and
silver coins. The head was found at the bottom of a well at the
villa, a large (2,500 square-metre) property built between the second
century BC and the first century AD. "We don't know who the villa
belonged to," said dig leader Stefano Musco. "This is an area dotted
with villas, because of its proximity to the administrative and
cultural hub that was Hadrian's court". The villa also
boasts "particularly fine" mosaic floors with characteristic
geometrical designs, Musco said. Other finds were thermal baths, a
warehouse and two entrance halls or atria. Augustus (63 BC-14 AD),
the adopted son of Julius Caesar, was Romés first emperor.(ANSAmed).
RED-GZ
10/05/2006 15:03
From the News 5/9/06
Joe Geranio
Posted by: Joe Geranio | July 06, 2006 at 11:25 PM