James Ossuary James Ossuary The James Ossuary is a 1st-century limestone box that was used for containing the bones of the dead. An Aramaic inscription in the Hebrew alphabet meaning "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is cut into one side of the box. The inscription is considered significant because, if genuine, it might provide archaeological evidence for Jesus of Nazareth. However, while the ossuary itself is accepted as authentic to the time period, the inscription itself could be a modern forgery. The existence of the ossuary was announced at an October 21, 2002 Washington press conference co-hosted by the Discovery
James Ossuary Channel and the Biblical Archaeology Society. The owner of the ossuary is Oded Golan, an Israeli engineer and antiquities collector. The initial translation of the inscription was done by André Alexandre Lemaire, a Semitic epigrapher, whose article claiming that the ossuary and its inscription were authentic was published in the November/December 2002 "Biblical Archaeology Review". In 2003, The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) determined that the inscriptions were forged at a much later date. In December 2004, Oded Golan was charged with 44 counts of forgery, fraud and deception, including forgery of the Ossuary inscription. The trial lasted seven years before