Reap and Sow
Reap and Sow
Fake Dead Sea Scrolls, Provenance, Tendies, Theranos Patents, Jim Bakker, Performance Reviews, and Richard Burr
Proverbs 14:14
Ahh, the Museum of the Bible. Remember them? The ones who, like a month ago were embroiled in a scandal because they had bought stolen papyrus fragments? The ones who had to give 5,500 stolen clay tablets back to Iraq in 2017? Yeah, so it turns out their fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes:
On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum’s founder, and some of the world’s leading biblical scholars.
Rather than the typical whodunit story, however, National Geographic takes us on a more interesting journey - how the experts figured out the fragments were fakes, and how the forgers likely created them in the first place. There were some pretty obvious clues:
First, the team concluded that the fragments were seemingly made of the wrong material. Nearly all the authentic Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are made of tanned or lightly tanned parchment, but at least 15 of the Museum of the Bible’s fragments were made of leather, which is thicker, bumpier, and more fibrous.
Okay, so, like…what? Note that in the first quoted paragraph the author says the fragments duped some of the world’s leading biblical scholars which leaves me with questions. What does a leading biblical scholar do if they can’t tell the difference between parchment and leather? This is the second time this year I’ve written about forged ancient texts and it is the second time I’ve been surprised by how obvious the fakes seem in hindsight, and how the entire scholarly community seems to go along with it, right up until the moment they smack their collective forehead and say “Of course! These aren’t even written on the right material!”
The answer, I think, has to do with provenance. In the art world, a compelling story is nearly as important as the underlying work itself. In this case, some of the fragments appear to have originated from the original source of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an antique dealer nicknamed Kando, who had bought and re-sold the original fragments when they were first discovered in 1947 in Palestine. Selling the scrolls became illegal in the 1970s, which created an opening for forgers to step into, claiming that their pieces had either escaped the ban - meaning they were looted - or had been acquired prior to the law change.
From 2002 to 2009 the market became saturated with Dead Sea Scroll fragments, and then along came the Green family, their Hobby Lobby wealth, and their Museum of the Bible to snap a bunch up. Some of them were even purchased directly from Kando - one way to avoid questions of provenance, and to convince scholars of their authenticity.
How were these forgeries created? The researchers speculate that Bedouin tribesmen acquired old artifacts from different times, dusted them with sediment and soil from the area the original scrolls had been recovered, and wrote Biblical verse on them:
Charlesworth also says he has seen pieces of blank, ancient leather in circulation. “In the past, when I told the Bedouin that a piece was worthless because it had no writing, I inadvertently suggested how to make it valuable,” he says.
This is what happens when wealthy, dumb people throw money at things. Why is there a private Museum of the Bible? What can they provide to the public that the thousands of respectable university and public museums cannot? It is another billionaire vanity project, and in this case it also happens to be a way for people to launder millions of dollars. I feel like the authors of the Bible might have had something to say about people like the Greens.
Provenance
Since we’re talking forgeries, let’s talk more about provenance. In the art world, especially, establishing provenance is critical for art dealers trying to sell works from famous artists. It was central to the stolen Gospel of Mark fragments story I wrote about back in January. Essentially, you either need convincing provenance, or you need to be considered an authority, like Kando was in Palestine.
Maria Konnikova has written about provenance in the world of art forgers in her book The Confidence Game, and talked about it on her podcast The Grift. Two examples in particular illustrate the importance of provenance in the art world.
First there’s Glafira Rosales. The New York Times describes her as:
The Long Island dealer at the center of an $80 million art forgery scheme that duped dozens of experts and buyers
Her case was interesting because it hinged on the provenance of the works, which Rosales was able to launder through one of the most famous New York art galleries, leading to its collapse:
Investigators have said that 40 of the counterfeits were sold through Knoedler & Company, a venerable Upper East Side gallery that abruptly closed in November 2011 after being in business for more than 165 years.
How did she do it? This in-depth account of the affair in Art News sheds some light on things:
All of the Rosales works supposedly came from a collector who had made his riches in the sugar business and had homes in Switzerland and Mexico. Freedman told collectors he was very secretive and wished to remain anonymous
[…]
He had obtained the works directly from the studios of Abstract Expressionist artists, she said. When he died, his son wanted Rosales’s help to sell some of the works.
This would normally not be enough for a storied art gallery to accept a work as authentic, but it seems that Ann Freedman, the director of the Knoedler gallery at the time, was eager to make some big ticket sales, and did not do sufficient due diligence. It’s a familiar pattern - people desperate to believe that a fake is real, especially if they have a monetary interest.
At trial, it was revealed that Freedman and other Knoedler staff were happy to craft more and more elaborate stories of provenance to sell the paintings, and tens of millions in art was purchased by unsuspecting buyers.
The Art News piece also digs into the thorny issue of experts and how they exist within the world of authentication and appraisals. When a wealthy collector brings in an appraiser or expert to authenticate a painting, there is often a conflict of interest - the expert is being paid for their time, and if they call a painting a forgery but other experts call it authentic, they could lose out on future commissions. This discourages experts from following their doubts or suspicions when authenticating a painting. The author of the piece struggles with this:
The painting’s presence in the courtroom was uncomfortable for everyone. When I looked at it, all I could see was a black splotch of color on top of a red one. “Of course it’s a fake,” I thought every time I saw it, trying to avoid the possibility that if I viewed it in a museum I might have have scratched my chin thoughtfully while looking at its majestic colors.
Okay, so it’s a bad idea to fudge the provenance of paintings that sell for millions of dollars. The stakes are high, and you will eventually be found out. What if, instead of trying to forge big name artists, you set your sights a bit lower? Enter Ken Perenyi:
For nearly three decades Ken Perenyi made a small fortune forging works by popular 18th- and 19th-century artists like Martin Johnson Heade, Gilbert Stuart and Charles Bird King.
Perenyi made quite a lot of money over many years by forging works by second- and third-tier painters, selling paintings for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. For much of his early career - Konnikova interviews him for an episode of her podcast - he would simply walk his pieces in the door at art galleries, claiming he had found them at a yard or estate sale. Dealers would, at times, write him a check on the spot. Provenance be damned!
One thing I found particularly interesting, listening to Perenyi talk about his experiences, was that he would ask the art dealers to describe what they thought the painting was, and let them create the provenance out of thin air. Perenyi was particularly good at faking other small details, like adding scuffed chalk writing to the back of his works to make them appear like they had been sold at auction in the past. All of these small touches allowed the imaginations of greedy gallery owners to run wild.
So, what is provenance? In some cases it is a meticulously constructed, verified history of a piece of art, tracing its existence from the time the creator finished it in the studio to the present. Other times, it’s a story of a secret inheritance and a reclusive sugar magnate. Sometimes it’s just a guy who walked in to a gallery and said he found a painting at a garage sale.
Don’t Take My Tendies
If you aren’t familiar with the subreddit WallStreetBets, that’s probably a good thing. It’s a forum for stock trading enthusiasts - I wouldn’t go so far as to label them day traders, as many of them likely do not trade at all - to talk about crazy speculation in the markets. Some people think WSB has the power to move markets, and Bloomberg recently did a cover story on it.
Whether they are market manipulators, kids doing it for the memes, or some other thing, WSB moderators decided to take the sub private after it hit one million subscribers, meaning the general public could no longer read it. This lasted less than a day, because scammers immediately started trying to sell access to the sub for money:
Due to some bad characters trying to take advantage of WallStreetBets going private, we have decided to make it public again and clarify something very important: r/WallStreetBets will NEVER, and has never, charge for access. There are scammers going around Twitter and other platforms pretending to be moderators and asking for donations in order to gain access. Do not send money to these scammers.
Whoops! Anyhow, WSB is public again, so if you need investment advice in these trying times, definitely do not go there.
Theranos AND SoftBank??
I was reeeeally ready to write about this story earlier in the week, but thankfully I am a procrastinator and waited until Thursday to finish up the newsletter, because there have been significant updates. Of course, I’ll write about it anyhow.
Basically, a shell company that owns a couple of Theranos patents was suing a company called BioFire for violating those patents. BioFire is currently working on tests for coronavirus, which would have been interrupted thanks to the lawsuit. When this horrific abuse of the justice system came out, the company, Labrador Diagnostics, backpedaled and had to issue a press release saying they were not suing over anything COVID-19 related. It’s a good thing journalists exist to save us from patent trolls seeking to profit off a global pandemic.
It doesn’t end there, though, because guess who owns the holding company that owns Labrador? SoftBank! These fucking guys!
In other news, SoftBank may be pulling out of bailing out WeWork, which, good. Can you imagine if WeWork was a public company right now? They’d be begging the government for a bailout while offering their offices as temporary hospitals. Free beer with every ventilator!
Speaking of Coronavirus
This motherfucker has been sued for selling fake COVID-19 cures:
That’s Jim Bakker, the guy who was convicted of fraud in the 80’s and is currently back in the televangelist racket selling things like colloidal silver and other dangerous snake oil.
His show is essentially one long advertisement for panic buying and disaster prepping. Think Alex Jones, but with more Jesus. We’re going to see a lot of coronavirus profiteering in the weeks and months to come, so buckle up. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Performance Reviews
No one likes performance reviews at work. They are highly subjective, typically administered by someone who is hardly qualified to assess your performance, and have been shown time and time again to be biased against women and minorities.
So, basically, they’re a giant fucking scam! Need more proof? Facebook has just announced as much:
Facebook Inc. will give all of its full-time employees an additional $1,000 in their next paycheck and will give everyone the same “exceeds expectations” performance review for the first half of the year.
By giving all of its roughly 45,000 full-time staffers the same review, Facebook is ensuring that all of those employees receive their biannual bonuses.
I mean, sure, this is good in the short term. The last thing a Facebook employee needs to be worried about right now is their job performance. Wait, maybe they should be worried about that.
In case you weren’t incredulous enough, read this:
Facebook’s performance ratings are a hallmark of the company’s culture, requiring employees to collect feedback from five colleagues, among other things. The top rating is “redefines,” followed by “greatly exceeds expectations” and “exceeds expectations.”
So, basically they gave everyone in the company the third-highest rating as they attempt to grapple with a global pandemic. Okay. Also, what the fuck is “redefines” expectations? Is it me or does that sound like the rating you should be giving the lowest performers, since you now have to put them on a Personal Improvement Plan? It also puts what I assume is a fairly ridiculous amount of pressure on the highest performers to, uh, redefine expectations twice a year? No thank you.
At least they don’t have to go through the actual review process:
Facebook employees will still gather reviews from colleagues and managers, a spokeswoman said, but everyone’s rating will be set to “exceeds expectations” during the first half of 2020.
Oh come on, man! So you have to waste five of your coworkers’ time, when everyone already knows the outcome? I remember a time when the tech press used to fawn over how cool it as that tech companies had ping pong tables and nap pods or whatever, but in very short order they’ve become bureaucratic Bosch triptychs just like the rest of corporate America.
It’s Been a Busy Week, Okay?
I was going to stick this in Short Cons, but now I’ve just read a second story about him and you know what? Fuck it. He gets a section. Richard Burr, come on down:
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.
First, he warned a room full of rich donors about coronavirus weeks ahead of the public:
"Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they're making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it?" Burr said.
Then, for good measure, he dumped a bunch of his stock holdings, right before the markets tanked:
His biggest sales included companies that are among the most vulnerable to an economic slowdown. He dumped up to $150,000 worth of shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, a chain based in the United States that has lost two-thirds of its value. And he sold up to $100,000 of shares of Extended Stay America, an economy hospitality chain. Shares of that company are now worth less than half of what they did at the time Burr sold.
How about that? I’m sure that the rich donors who were in the room when Burr warned them that the outbreak would be “akin to the 1918 pandemic” just went home and sat on that information - I am sure they did not also call their brokers and sell off hospitality and airline stocks.
There will need to be a lot of investigations into how our government bungled the response to COVID-19 in the coming years, but the sheer gall of these people to not only warn their friends weeks in advance - while making public statements to the contrary - and then profit off that knowledge? Unreal.
Check Out My SoundCloud (again)
Last week I tried to do a reading of the entire newsletter for audiophiles and I kind of hated the result, so this week I am attempting a different format, and doing an air quotes “podcast” of me talking about last week’s newsletter and expounding on what I found interesting about the stories. I’ve done this one fairly drunk, which I will blame on life under quarantine. Anyhow here it is, for those who prefer listening to reading. If you have comments or suggestions, my inbox and DMs are open.
Short Cons
NPR - “John "Fast Jack" Farrell died August 1, 2019 at the age of 82.” RIP
Newsweek - “New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered [Alex Jones] to immediately cease and desist selling and marketing products such as toothpaste and dietary supplements that claim to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
Wired - “At the height of its powers, Necurs was one of the most disruptive forces on the internet. A sort of Swiss Army botnet, over the years it has harnessed more than 9 million computers unwittingly under its control to send spam, distribute ransomware, attack financial institutions, and more. Last week, Microsoft pulled its plug.”
Inquirer - “Comcast mistakenly posted online the contact information of nearly 200,000 customers who paid the company a monthly fee to keep their phone numbers private.”
Citations Definitely Needed
This week Walt Hickey at Numlock News featured one of my stories in his newsletter, so by way of thanks I will tell all of you to subscribe to it. Some of the stories I find for ASD are from Numlock. It’s good! Tips to scammerdarkly@gmail.com as always.