Pseudo-altpersische Inschriften

The present volume is the first systematic treatment of forged inscriptions in Old Persian cuneiform script. The reason for writing it was the fact that the authenticity of the texts needs special attention just in the case of such a restricted (and also rather stereotyped) corpus of inscriptions. The fakes known to the author are documented most exactly and are discussed as fully as needed with regard to philological and linguistic as well as epigraphic matters. A preceding chapter presents those Achaemenid texts from antiquity that are not authentic in so far as in reality they are not from the king who is quoted as their author, for such texts may show us, how we are able to produce proof for a text being not genuine. As an appendix as it were, modern imitations of such cuneiform inscriptions are drawn together, as one finds them partly in texts newly formulated by experts in Old Persian script and language, partly in reused genuine inscriptions. The forgers' methods and thus the single forged texts are quite different. General questions as those of exposing some forging or of adding an inscription on an originally uninscribed object or even of treating finds which do not come from regular excavations are brought up also. This makes it clear again and again that an inscription in no way is reliable evidence that the object in question is actually a genuine antique.