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14th September 07

 

Someone emailed me recently asking if it was difficult for fakers to create fake cuneiform tablets.

Well, yes, it's probably difficult for them to create a tablet that would likely fool an Assyriologist; though there definitely are extremely well made replicas around that would! These were made as replicas in the 19th century by the Ready brothers, using moulds taken from genuine tablets. (They were employed by the British Museum to make cast replicas of lots of things)

There are large numbers of cuneiform tablets in the West which came out of Iraq principally in the period 1890 until the early 1930s. Then again a fair number left Iraq in the 1980's. Contrary to what you may read in the media I doubt that proportionately that many were taken out in the political instability of recent years.

Let's start with a few really silly ones. Really dreadful fakes.

Available at between $600  and $1000 from a well known seller in Manhattan.

 

 








 

The one above........

 



Not really offerd in two colours. The images on the seller's website are of the same fake tablet, just altered in colour in Photoshop.





The so called "translation" is simply made up! It is nonsense!

You can even buy them  framed like this.




The large tablet in the photo above is of course not the tablet you receive: it is the smaller fake tablet you get.

Compare with some genuine cuneiform tablets close up. Even if the wedge characters make no sense to you should be able to see the differences.

 








 

The best way to determine authenticity is to have your tablet read by an Assyriologist.

This may be of interest to you.

CUNEIFORM READING SERVICE

 

This miserable thing was offered on eBay by a well known seller of fakes but in this case he described it as a "reproduction"!

 



 

Some slightly "better" faked cuneiform  tablets>>>>.