INQUISITION NEWS: Jordan vows to recover artefacts

Jordan vows to recover artefacts 'as important as Dead Sea Scrolls'

Jordan has vowed to use all means at its disposal to recover a set of artefacts allegedly smuggled into Israel that it believes could constitute the most important Christian texts ever found.

One of the metal books - or codices - that is at the centre of a dispute between Jordan, Israel and British archaeologists

By Adrian Blomfield, Jerusalem

A British team of archaeologists last week announced the discovery of a hoard
of ancient texts that they claim could have been written by contemporaries
of Christ and whose existence is hinted at in the Bible's apocalyptic Book
of Revelation.

Cast in lead and copper, the sealed texts, known as codices, have already
become the subject of intrigue worthy of an Indiana Jones plot line.

Stories of subterfuge abound, with at least one of the British archaeologists
reportedly facing death threats as they try to rescue the artefacts for
posterity from privateers intent on breaking them up and selling them on the
Black Market.

Other experts, meanwhile have dismissed the codices as an elaborate hoax and
criticised the British team, led by David Elkington, an Egyptologist, and
his wife Jennifer.

But for the Jordanian
government, which has backed the Elkingtons' work, the codices are an
invaluable piece of world heritage at least on a par with the Dead Sea
Scrolls, the Jewish texts found in an Israeli cave in 1947.

"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than the Dead
Sea Scrolls," Ziad al-Saad, the director of Jordan's Department of
Antiquities, told the BBC, who said they could be "the most important
discovery in the history of archaeology."

Jordan's quarrel is not with the Israeli government, but with Hassan Saeda, a
Bedouin farmer in the Galilee, who has possession of the codices and is
keeping them in hiding.

According to the Elkingtons, Mr Saeda received the artefacts from a Jordanian
Bedouin who discovered them in a cave at some stage between 2005 and 2007,
much in the same way the Dead Sea Scrolls were found 64 years ago.

Mr Saeda denies the claim, saying the codices have been in his family's
possession since they were found by his great-grandfather, an assertion
challenged by the Jordanian government, which said it would "exert all
efforts at every level" to get the artefacts repatriated.

In slightly unclear circumstances, Dr Elkington's team was allowed access to a
small portion of the artefacts where they reached their conclusion.

Containing cryptic messages in Hebrew and Ancient Greek, the codices were
etched in an indecipherable code. They were also replete with potentially
messianic symbols including what appeared to be a Roman cross before an
empty tomb, and behind the walls of a city – a clear reference, the team
believed, to Christ's crucifixion "without a city wall".

A piece of leather found with the metal books was shown by carbon dating tests
to be just under 2,000 years old, potentially placing its provenance within
Christ's ministry, while a metallurgical examination on one of the codices
found that it was also very old.

Israeli archaeological sources have been dismissive of the find, suggesting
that Mr Saeda has appeared "every few years" trying to sell the
codices. They said examinations had shown them to be forgeries.