Ancient Artifact Obama Gave Iran is a Fake from 1999

Made in Taiwan

Made in Taiwan

A fake from a fake for a fake.

Obama ran for office promising masterful diplomacy. The reality has been less savvy diplomat and more pathetic loser. Hillary Clinton’s Reset Button with Russia was a dumb Bush-bashing gimmick and it was also misspelled.

That set the tone for the long-running comedy of errors in which Obama Inc. blended appeasement with dumb gimmicks and somehow managed to screw them up.

The ancient artifact it shouldn’t have given to Iran… proved not to be so ancient after all.

Sometimes an ancient artifact symbolizes more than its admirers necessarily imagine. Take for example the silver griffin that was returned by the United States to Iran as a gesture of respect and—at least according to tea-leaf readers—a sign of an emerging thaw between the two nations.

There’s only one problem: It’s a fake.

Not only is it a fake, it’s a bad fake.

Not only was it a bad fake. But the US government knew it was a bad fake. But the State Department chose not to know.

A definitive publication by retired Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Oscar White Muscarella clearly demonstrates that what is alleged by even the U.S. State Department to be a 2,700-year-old artifact from Iran is actually a modern fake, dating back to, at the earliest, 1999.

But when the griffin arrived in New York in 2003, one of the Iranian-Swiss dealers was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security on the charge of falsifying the object’s place of origin. The next year he pleaded guilty to falsely stating that the griffin had originated in Syria rather than Iran and received one year of probation and a fine of $5,000. The buyer got her money back. The artifact was seized but the market, the game, was barely disturbed.

Then the griffin went into Homeland Security’s deep freeze, residing in a Queens warehouse until this fall.

So the US knew this was fake, because the Federal government had seized it… for being fake. And gave it to Iran. In exchange for fake offers of peace.

From someone smarter than Obama, that might have been a clever dig. The British, once upon a time, might have done it that way. But Obama and his people are just arrogant idiots.

  • mindRider

    Don’t worry about it, the alleged moderation and political taw from Rouhani is just as fake.

  • chelmer

    “From someone smarter than Obama, that might have been a clever dig. The British, once upon a time, might have done it that way. But Obama and his people are just arrogant idiots.”
    Don’t you miss the days when our leaders and diplomats were sophisticated, hardened, shrewd individuals? Sorry, I’m addressing the older readers.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      Oh yes

    • Gee

      Okay – but am not 200 years old – that was about the last time any of them could have been described as such

    • Boogie’s Daddy

      You probably mean “cultured”. The true meaning of “sophisticated” describes Obama and his ilk purrphiktlee.

      • alfondso Tisserand

        LMAO! Not many know the true meaning: “sophisticated, possessed of false knowledge,pretentiously or superficially wise.”

  • Veracious_one

    and I thought Obama’s gift of an IPod to the Queen of England was in bad taste…Obama has displayed a knack for being a cheap egomaniac….

    • Boogie’s Daddy

      It was all they had in the Iranian section of the airport gift shop.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Give Obamas ego a break.

      He did get a Nobel Peace Prize BEFORE he did ANYTHING.

      An Affirmative Action Nobel Peace Prize.

  • motherofbeaver

    I would prefer the three stooges to this crew. At least they were well meaning, except for Moe.

  • A Z

    “A definitive publication by retired Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Oscar White Muscarel”

    The link to the publication does not work from FPM nor tabletmag.com.

    One has to wonder if someone is scrubbing the internet a la 1984.

    I wanted to know how they knew it was fake. It won’t be from different the dozen or more different isotopes of carbon (which is the only method that I can remember although i have read about others.) since this is a metal object. so I was interested in finding out.

    merely giving a fake artifact to Iran would be cause for outrage in Iran when they choose to make it so.

    At some point the Ayatollahs will want to whip up the masses and this will only add fuel to the fire.

    WTF was Obama thinking?

    • Bobbie Dillard

      Thats just it..Obama doesn’t think….

    • truelies2

      Ask Reggie

  • oneteedoffpatriot

    I’d rather have that fake than a bunch of CD’s containing obozo’s stupid incoherent speeches.

    • logdon

      DVD’s actually which wouldn’t play on the European system!

  • http://itooktheredpill.wordpress.com/ Red Pill

    It’s not a “griffin”, it’s a Buraq.
    Yes, Barack gave Iran a Buraq.

    • youandme2

      So they borrowed that mythic creature from Zoroastrianism, much like with their mixed up stories from the bible? Hmm.

      • Mohammed Wazir Ahkspaidar

        No – the burak is the winged white donkey with the face of a woman that Mo flew from Mecca to Jerusalem on in a few seconds ( so they think) . It is on this basis that muslims clain The Temple Mount as being ‘the 3rd most holy site in islam’.

        Hey, don’t laugh!! It’s as valid as any of their other claims.

        • youandme2

          No, that’s my point. This is a pre-islamic artifact (a fake pre-islamic item from 2,700 years ago). From the ancient Persian civilization, whose myth and religion is Zoroastrian.
          If that can be considered a Buraq, as in Mohammed’s night journey, then that means the Buraq is a borrowing from ancient Persia, no?

          There are still a few beleaguered hyper-stubborn Zoroastrians in Iran, strangely enough. And an interest in the religion is “hip” among young Iranians who oppose the mullahs.

          I had just never heard that that creature big M rode that night *was lifted from it.*

          And M’s story of that flight never ever says or implies “Jerusalem.” This was strictly claimed by a wannabe caliph in Jerusalem at some later point. And that’s all they got for that claim.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Move the so called Al Aqsa mosque to

            Al-aska.

            Let the polar bears deal with the jihadis.

          • truelies2

            What do you have against bears?

          • patechinois

            But Barrack just couldn’t resist a buraq, fake or not, because it sounded like his name, and the iPod with all his speeches given to the Queen went down so well since EVERYONE loves Barrack…they just can’t get enough of him and he knows it!! His sick obsession to have everything be about him overpowered any logic or basic math to realize even if this thing was REAL, it would have been a PRE-ISLAMIC artifact, something the mullahs in Iran would have regarded as blasphemous idolatry and would have most likely melted it down for the value of the silver it contained, so Barrack, in his blinding narcissism would have, in effect, personally destroyed a precious historical artifact. Kinda like the Constitution.

    • Hangtown Bob

      This is VERY interesting. I had always assumed that Barack was some sort of African or Kenyan name. It now appears that not only does his middle name derive from Islam but also his first.

      • Avi

        Barack means “blessed”.
        Of course, it would have been more accurate to call him “cursed”, for at the end he will land in hell, like all evil people.

      • Milhouse

        Barak is not the same as Buraq. Barak means “blessing”, and is cognate to Baruch. Buraq, the winged horse thing, comes from Baraq, which means “lightning”. (Baraq was Devorah’s general, in the book of Judges)

        • http://www.black-and-right.com/ IceColdTroll

          I believe Buraq was also the name of the flying horse which reportedly carried the Prophet (piss be upon him) to Jerusalem in a vision.

          • Milhouse

            Good grief. You flaming idiot, did you bother to read the comment before replying to it? What part of “the winged horse thing” did you not understand?

          • http://www.black-and-right.com/ IceColdTroll

            Sorry, your remark was so oblique I didn’t even recognize it as a reference to that; in fact I had to read it over a couple more times before I did. I assumed you were speaking of the phony artifact, which is identified above as a “buraq” and is indeed a winged horse. Perhaps you need to take a crash course in writing and composition, you flaming goatpounder, and maybe try decaf, too.

          • Milhouse

            Still an idiot. We’ve already established that the winged horse, the buraq, a phoney depiction of which 0bama gave Iran, is what Mohammed rode in his dream. They’re the same thing.

          • http://www.black-and-right.com/ IceColdTroll

            You need a crash course in spelling too; “phony,” not “phoney.”

            Again, sorry for not reading every single post below and comparing time-stamps before chipping in my 2 cents. As I say, your own comment was unclear on the point and reads simply as etymylogical analysis. Your reaction is STILL very dysfunctional.

            So – you can’t write and you have marginal social skills. The way I see it . . .

          • Milhouse

            Check a dictionary before correcting someone else’s spelling, you moron.

            And you didn’t need to read anything below, you just had to read what came before. Which any normal person does before jumping into a thread.

          • http://www.black-and-right.com/ IceColdTroll

            phony   Use Phony in a sentence
            pho·ny [foh-nee] Show IPA adjective, pho·ni·er, pho·ni·est, noun, plural pho·nies, verb,pho·nied, pho·ny·ing.
            adjective
            1.
            not real or genuine; fake; counterfeit: a phony diamond.
            2.
            false or deceiving; not truthful; concocted: a phony explanation.
            3.
            insincere or deceitful; affected or pretentious: a phony sales representative.
            noun
            4.
            something that is phony; a counterfeit or fake.
            5.
            an insincere, pretentious, or deceitful person: He thought my friends were abunch of phonies.

            /discussion over.

            Any more attempted retorts and you’re a phag.

          • Milhouse

            And what else does your dictionary say? Does it not list “phoney”? If it doesn’t, it’s a phoney dictionary.

          • http://www.black-and-right.com/ IceColdTroll

            Whoops!

          • Milhouse

            Well, at least you’re living up to your name, troll. Go take a long walk off a short pier. You are a waste of oxygen.

      • http://itooktheredpill.wordpress.com/ Red Pill

        Hangtown Bob,
        If you found that interesting, check out this post I wrote three years ago…

        Barack Hussein Obama took Shahada

    • patechinois

      I wouldn’t put it past that arrogant, self-centered Barack to intentionally give a gift that was a homonym of his name. EVERYTHING is about him.

      • logdon

        Including the dog.

  • bob e

    well..it’s a bit better than the fake birth certificate he gave to us….

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Ya beat me to it.

      Kudos.

  • Fletch

    Obama is totally *useless* at giving gifts. You’d think he’d have advisors to make better suggestions? Back in 2011, he met with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key –

    –snip–

    Mr Obama has given Mr Key a New Zealand-made gift, a replica of the sword being used in the Hobbit movies, by the character Bilbo Baggins.
    It was made by the Weta Workshop in Wellington.

    –snip–

    WTF? Why would anyone do that? Everyone knows Lord Of The Rings was made and filmed in New Zealand. Why would you give the New Zealand Prime Minister something that was made in his own country? And where did he get it from anyway? Isn’t that re-gifting?

    • Rowan

      Didn’t Michelle give home canned vegetables to some senior UN staff? Amazing… Yes, I think the “region one” DVDs were such a significant gaffe… if G W had done this, it would have been all over the news…

  • JDL Toronto

    A fake gift from a fake president

  • puhiawa

    Ran out of DVDs?

  • lgeubank

    “Hillary Clinton’s Reset Button with Russia was a dumb Bush-bashing gimmick.” The word that always comes to my mind is INFANTILE. And hideously embarrassing.

    “Obama Inc. blended appeasement with dumb gimmicks” — dead-on characterization.

    “Obama and his people are just arrogant idiots.” Right again.

    If we wanted to give Iran an ancient artifact, why didn’t we give them Hillary Clinton?

    • truelies2

      Better yet…..The oldest H-Bomb in our inventory…at approximately 2.000 feet over Tehran….Talk about a reset button……

      • iwillnotsubmit

        mecca and medina next.

    • vietnamvet

      Obama should have given them something that they could actually use.
      Queen Elizabeth would probably have donated her copy of the DVD which contains all of Obama’s speeches …

  • Naresh Krishnamoorti

    A fake piece for a fake peace.

  • Guest

    A fake from a fake to a fake.

  • tickletik

    I didnt have a problem with the administration giving this gift back when I thought it was real, I wished they would have treated Israel and even England with some of that same courtesy. And I hear what D.G. Is saying that it would have even been something if they gsve they fake to mess with them, ala James Bond, there is something to be said for cockiness and bravado. But hes right, this was none of the above, these guys simply have absolutely no class whatsoever.

  • Buffalobob

    1999, and with a Made in China sticker on the bottom.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Made by Foxxcom.

      • George

        Obama doesn’t care, as long as it’s SOMEONE eles he’ll give it away and take the credit.

        Maybe Obama should have thought “you din’t build that” in this case too..

  • Ron Babineau

    Obama himself is a fake so why would anyone expect him to be around anything real …… fake is the word …. Obama.

  • OBAMA_IS_SATANIC

    DOUBLE F**K YOU OBAMA!!! YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIIT!!!

    …………………./´¯/)
    ………………..,/¯../
    ………………./…./
    …………./´¯/’…’/´¯¯`•¸
    ………./’/…/…./…../../¨¯
    ……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
    ……………………..’…../
    ……..………..……. _.•´
    ……………………..(
    …………..………….

  • Captain America’s Wife

    OMG! This is the most hilarious thing I’ve read today. But it shouldn’t be a surprise…Obama & his minions are good at faking stuff (birth certificate).

  • edro3111

    Made my day!!!

  • mikefong

    Icecoldtroll…..dude you are too funny! I am laughing hysterical at your retorts to milhouse, who is also amusing, but not as funny as you dude! I am jet lagged from a 5 week trip overseas, and this has put my mind right. thanks much my brother…..the prophet, piss be upon him, too funny dude!!!! hang in there man.