Jordanian officials have, several times, accused Jewish visitors of visiting archaeological sites like Petra and burying fake Jewish artifacts there, in order to claim the land as Jewish some time in the future.
This is all part of Jordanian paranoia, as the sites in question may be important to Jewish history but are generally not considered to be part of Biblical Judah.
However, it appears that there is a grain of truth in the wild accusations. But it is not Jews who are faking the artifacts – but Jordanian dealers trying to rip off tourists.
Al Ghad has an investigative report where they acted as tourists and befriended dealers who set up shop outside the archaeological tourist sites, eventually getting them to sell their most secret items that they hide from the casual shopper.
The sellers regale potential customers with tales of how the artifacts – often coins, are Roman, Greek or Jewish, or they interest them in amulets or rocks carved with six-pointed stars or a depiction of the Temple menorah.
The purchased items were brought to experts, and most of them were found to be forgeries.
The real crime, of course, is that these fake Jewish coins and artifacts help push the imagined Jewish narrative that this is really Israeli territory. “They are tampering with the history of Jordan, for a few dollars, and that they are selling the homeland and substantiating in its place Jewish allegations that the Jews have promoted since time immemorial,” the newspaper writes.
The newspaper goes on to describe how the dealers will take older coins, re-engrave them with pictures and wording copied from legitimate antique coins, bury them in the ground for a period of time and then resell them.
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