Moses Shapira (1830-1884) was a Victorian Jerusalem antiquities dealer and purveyor of fake biblical artifacts.
Moses Wilhelm Shapira was born in 1830 to Polish-Jewish parents in Kamenets-Podolski, which at the time was part of Russian-annexed Poland (in modern-day Ukraine). Shapira's father immigrated to Palestine and in 1856, at the age of 25, Moses Shapira followed suit. His grandfather, who accompanied him, died en route.
In Jerusalem, Moses Shapira converted to Anglicanism and in 1861 founded a store devoted to pilgrim trade in Christian Quarter Road. He sold the usual religious tourist paraphernalia and ancient pots he had acquired from Arab farmers.
Shapira became interested in biblical artifacts after the appearance of the so-called Moabite Stone, the Mesha Stele. He witnessed the schism and interest around it and may have had a hand in negotiations between German, British and French representatives. France eventually got the fragments of the original stone.
Shapira proceeded to create a flood of fake Moabite artifacts – clay figurines, large human heads, clay vessels and erotic pieces, with inscriptions that had been copied from the Mesha Stele. His associate was a Christian Arab potter Salim al-Kari. In modern eyes, the products seem clumsy – inscriptions do not translate to anything legible, for one – but at the time there was little to compare them with. He even organized an expedition to Moab where he had his Bedouin associates bury more forgeries. Some scholars began to base their theories on these pieces.
Since German archaeologists had not gained posession the Moabite Stone, they rushed to buy the Shapira Collection before their rivals. The Berlin Museum bought 1700 artefacts with the cost of 22.000 thalers in 1873. Other private collectors followed suit. One of them was Horatio Kitchener, British military officer, who bought eight pieces in his own expense. Shapira was able to move to Aga Rashid (modern-day Ticho House), outside Jerusalem city walls with his wife and two daughters.
Still various people, including a French scholar and diplomat Charles Clermont-Ganneau, had their doubts. Clermont-Ganneau suspected Salim al-Kari, pressured him and found people who supplied him with clay. He published his findings in Athenauem newspaper in London and declared them forgeries.
Shapira defended his collection vigorously until his rivals presented more evidence against them. He made Salim al-Kari the scapegoat and played to role of innocent victim.
In 1883 Shapira presented what is now known as the Shapira Strips, fragments of supposedly ancient parchment he claimed to have found near the Dead Sea. Their inscriptions of ancient Semitic script hinted at a different version of the Ten Commandments and Deuteronomy. Shapira sought to sell them to the British Museum for a million poundss, and allowed them to exhibit two of the 15 strips. The exhibition was attended by thousands.
However, Charles Clermont-Ganneau also attended the exhibition; Shapira had denied him access to the other 13 strips. After close examination, Clermont-Ganneau declared them to be forgeries. Soon afterwards British biblical scholar Christian David Ginsburg came to the same conclusion. Later Clermont-Ganneau showed that the parchment of the Deuteronomy scroll was cut out of a genuine Yemenite scroll that Shapira had also sold to the museum.
Shapira slipped out of London and wandered around Europe for months. He shot himself in Hotel Bloemendaal in Rotterdam on March 9 1884.
The Shapira Scrolls disappeared and then reappeared a couple of years later in a Sotheby's auction, where they were sold for 10 guineass. In 1887 they were probably destroyed in a fire at the house of the final owner, Sir Charles Nicholson. Shapira fakes still exist in museums and private collections around the world but are rarely displayed.
