Fake Artefacts Stop US Museum Show [updated]

      Behind a retro-neo-classical façade,   
echoes of an imaginary past.    

It seems that an exhibition was going to be held at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa USA, that was going to contain a replica of the Rosetta Stone and some genuine Egyptian and Mesopotamian artefacts (I presume proudly loaned by some unnamed private collector[s]). Unfortunately, just three days before it opened, it was cancelled (Aaron Scheinblum, 'Experts: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum was 'scammed', ABC News Apr. 20, 2019). The reason for that was that many of the artefacts turned out to be fake:

When local experts from the University of Iowa reviewed those items, they were concerned by what they found. "It was clear to me that what we were dealing with were forgeries rather than authentic items," said Dr. Björn Anderson, an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies for the University of Iowa's School of Art and Art History.[...] The sudden cancellation came after experts from the University of Iowa came to prepare a presentation of the items on display. Dr. Anderson and a graduate student, Erin Daly, were preparing a series of papers to present on their research of the artifacts. What they found, was "concerning," in their words. "In the course of looking at them, Erin especially, confided in me as we were leaving, that the seals in particular just didn't quite mesh with what she knew and expected from her experience," Dr. Anderson said. "They seemed too big and carved in a very strange manner with sort of odd references to some of the iconography that I'm very familiar with," Daly said, who has experience with Ancient Near Eastern seals. In a report to the museum obtained by TV9, Dr. Anderson found that 90 of the 125 objects in the collection are "either definite or very likely fakes."

Prof Andersen suggested that the Museum was either misled by the unnamed exhibitor (if they knew the objects were fake) or the exhibitor had been misled (defrauded) by "the gallery that was selling him fraudulent material". Or galleries I suppose. There are huge numbers of fake artefacts on the global antiquities market.
Interestingly, the announcements of the upcoming exhibition seem to have been scrubbed from the Internet - presumably to avoid embarrassing the collector. There is however another dimension to this, when that collector attempts to sell off these artefacts, the buyers are prevented from finding out by researching the internet that some experts have claimed that among 125 artefacts examined, 90 were deemed fakes or probable fakes. Therefore the collector if so-minded only needs to offer the material for sale somewhere and wait for some gullible buyers to splash out and buy them as "cool genuine ancient artifacts". And so it goes on.

UPDATE 25th April 2019 

New details are now emerging about this case, it turns out that it was not a collector (Gregory R. Norfleet, 'Hoover exhibit canceled over questionable artifacts'. West Branch Times April 25, 2019)

The company that owns the exhibit is the Origins Museum Institute. The institute’s Marty Martin said he purchased the items about 20 years ago and did not know the items were forgeries. “It’s a horrible situation,” Martin said. “We had been assured they were authentic pieces and paid handsomely for them.” Anderson’s letter states that many, if not all, of the items appear to be from Sadigh Gallery of New York. Martin stated that he purchased the items from Sadigh Gallery. Michael Sadigh said he has run the Sadigh Gallery for more than 15 years but it would be difficult for him to speak to an antiquities sale that long ago. “I don’t know anything about this,” Sadigh said. “I wasn’t here 20 years ago. They purchased it 20 years ago and somebody now says they’re not real? I don’t know what to say.” [...] Martin said he does not have the “authority or expertise” to authenticate the items in the Rosetta Stone exhibit, and that he made that clear to the Hoover Museum, and trusted that they were authentic because the seller stated so. “I didn’t mislead them about giving guarantees,” Martin said. “We trusted the source we got them from. They assured us they were authentic. I do not want (the Hoover Museum) to think we tried to fool them. I was proud of owning those pieces.”

Yes you'd think an antiquities dealer would be somebody you could trust...

The Hoover Museum arranged the exhibit, but the Hoover Presidential Foundation provided the funding. Foundation President Jerry Fleagle said he supports Schwartz’s decision to cancel and the Foundation wants a refund from Origins Museum.[...] Fleagle said the Foundation put up half of the cost for the exhibit a year and a half ago when it booked the date and paid the second half when the items arrived at the museum. He declined to share the amount paid, but said it was “not as expensive as others, but not a small amount, either.” “It will take some time to get our money back,” he said. “I’d rather do it friendly and not use legal action.”
Martin agreed that the Hoover Museum should cancel his company’s exhibit based on their findings. “This is a terrible calamity for us,” Martin said. “My sympathies go with the people who took them in good faith. I’ve been in communication with the gallery, and they deny the questioning of the authenticity.”
Sadigh said he did not remember receiving a call from Martin regarding the Rosetta Stone exhibit. “I talk to hundreds of people a day here,” he said. “I will have to do some research.” Martin said he will seek reparations from Sadigh, which he hopes to use to reimburse the Foundation. Sadigh said he does not want any bad publicity for his gallery and considered a news article based on someone’s verbal statement regarding his company “not proper.” “I’m trying to help you as much as I can,” he told the Times. “I don’t like to get wrong or bad publicity. … I do not want to be accused.” Fleagle noted that legal action is not out of the question and that many of the Foundation board of trustees are themselves lawyers.

According to his Linkedin page, Marty Martin is "CEO at Origins Museum Institute, Collections Curator, Playwright, and Instructor at University of Texas at El Paso":

CEO Origins Museum Institute 1988 – Present The Origins Museum Institute creates and maintains several popular science exhibitions on the subjects of Paleontology, Archaeology, Cosmology, Anthropology, Egyptology, and Cultural Lore which tour museums and discovery centers throughout the world. As CEO and Curator of Collections, I engage with museums and install the various collections for temporary exhibition.

Here's the website: the Origins Museum Institute. And here's where I do not understand:

For over 3 decades the Origins Museum Institute has been providing museums throughout the world and the communities they serve with the wonders of the past, magnificently recreated by the most skilled hands from the foremost preparation labs of the great museums to the studios of Egypt’s Pharaonic Village and the jewelry workshops of St Petersburg. Seen by millions of delighted visitors, these revered exhibitions bring the treasures of the world’s finest institutions to those who might not have a chance to experience them otherwise.

The king Tutanhkhamun exhibit for example, visible here on a You Tube video... (catalogue here). In the video, you can't see these replicas close-to, but from a distance many look perfectly presentable as copies - as it seems clear is precisely what they are being displayed as. Some of them are a little (and a minority very) off, but again, if they are being presented as simulacra, then OK, the viewer might be inspired to look up the real ones in a book. I think the exhibit as shown is a little cramped and text-heavy.

If the Institute does not get rid of the fakes, I propose a really interesting exhibit could be put together under a fresh title: "American Artefact Collecting and Visions of the Past" and could even be quite  informative by looking at how the US interacts with the past(s) of the Old World, the significance of that past (those pasts) and how that significance is manifest (including in artefact collection).