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Joffe and BAR |
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Robert Deutsch Archaeologist and Epigrapher My staff colleague of the Megiddo expedition, Prof. Alexander H. Joffe (AHJ)-- one can consult the final report of the excavation "Megiddo III", our names are mentioned on the same page (of history)-- after naming a list of "unprovenanced" artifacts published in BAR, and leaving the reader with the false impression that they are fake items, adds the following cunning statement: "Virtually all originated from the private collection of London jeweler Shlomo Moussaieff and had been sold by a Jaffa antiquities dealer, Robert Deutsch, who was also a graduate student in ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University." (He suddenly has a lapsus and doesn't know me better.) This is of course a malicious, false statement, but AHJ is an honest man. I never sold to Mr Moussaieff even one of the items he mentions, but instead, I did publish the majority of his epigraphic material! But what is new under the sun? The recent attack, made by AHJ against me, follows his previous assault in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol.62 no 2:119-124 (JNES). There, under the title of a "Book Review," there is a so-called "review" of two of my books. The first: Messages from the Past; Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Isaiah Through the Destruction of the First Temple, Tel Aviv,1999 and the second: (co-authored with Andre Lemaire) Biblical Period Personal Seals in the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, Tel Aviv, 2000. AHJ, an honest man--under the pretext of "a review"-- addresses the topic of unprovenanced epigraphic material and attacked me for publishing such artifacts, instead of delivering a scholarly review of the material published, as promised in the title. I also like to remind AHJ that he received his salary at the Megiddo excavations from the contributions made by the collector, Mr Moussaieff, the very same person mentioned by AHJ, an "honest archaeologist and historian." There are no talking mirrors for hypocrites.
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