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... of thorns. A recent blogger, James Deltrick, has suggested that it is a replica of a photograph of the ‘Mona Lisa of the Galilee’ — a mosaic from Sepphoris that was uncovered by excavation in 1987. This is again likely, though not certain. In fact, there is another face, a rather modern-looking bearded one (Fig. 4), and to me reminiscent of 20th-century depictions of an Aryan Jesus. But whoever it is supposed to be, the style is hardly ancient. So we should accept that there are some modern items here. The variety of images (Jewish, Christian, Greek, Egyptian) might suggest that not all the images come from the same source and that the cave may have been a repository for more than one hoard. But only testing of the sheets themselves can determine this. Thonemann, for one, is in no doubt that the entire collection is a modern forgery and that scholars should not be wasting their time on them. I disagree: they may well turn out all to be quite modern or fairly modern. I think the balance of evidence is falling in this direction. But it is not wise for anyone to draw such definitive conclusions about things one has not seen. Moreover, in any case much about the artifacts themselves is intrinsically curious, as is the story of their ‘finding’ and of the subsequent publicity. If this all turns out to be a ‘story about a story’ (in my view quite likely), it will nevertheless be a story worth unravelling. Meanwhile, the wave of scepticism now sweep- ing the internet is washing over David and Jennifer Elkington and their personal histories. Some fairly serious charges are being laid against them, including by those claiming to be family members. Paul/David Elkington and his wife are themselves accused of being ‘forgeries’. The list of dramatis personae is not complete, either: Robert Feather, a metallurgist who has written on the Qumran Copper Scroll, and seems first to have broken the story, has been in contact with Mr Sa‘eeda and has himself a theory that in some places the Hebrew letters on the sheets appear ...