TY - GEN A1 - Colini, Claudia A2 - Michel, C. A2 - Friedrich, M. T1 - La invencĂ­on del Sacromonte: How and Why Scholars Debated about the Lead Books of Granada for Two Hundred Years T2 - Fakes and forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China N2 - At the end of the sixteenth century, a number of relics and artefacts were discovered in Granada, Spain. They included what became known as the Lead Books of the Sacromonte, twenty-one written artefacts made of circular lead leaves engraved in archaic Arabic characters. The authorship was attributed to some Arab disciples of St James the Greater considered to be the first evangelisers of the Iberian Peninsula. The texts, the materiality and the circumstances of the discoveries fuelled a debate surrounding their authenticity that lasted more than two centuries, a debate so fierce and controversial that not even papal condemnation in 1682 was able to stop it. Soon after the discoveries were made public, scholars highlighted the many contradictions and errors of a historical, linguistic and theological nature present in the texts, identifying members of the local Morisco community as possible forgers. This article focuses on how the scholarly community of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries handled these findings and looks at the methods employed by the scholars to evaluate the authenticity of the artefacts. It will also look at how the particular interests of the various authorities involved influenced the acceptance or dismissal of relevant academic results. PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin/Boston KW - Forgery KW - Moriscos KW - Parchment KW - Lead books PY - 2020 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51936 AN - OPUS4-51936 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/590832 VL - Studies in Manuscript Cultures 20 SP - 209 EP - 262 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany