Preface

From The Scandal of the Century by Christine Mansoor


The late Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote, "If man can be allowed to determine for himself what is the law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process."

This book is a critical analysis of the history of the numerous attempts to discredit the authenticity of the Mansoor collection of the El-Amarna artifacts by people in museum circles who are intellectually dishonest. For example, in 1991, the Director of the Agyptisches Museum in Berlin, one Dr. Dietrich Wildung, wrote a letter to Dr. Richard L. Trapp, of San Francisco State University, condemning the collection as a fraud.

This appalling charge typifies the intellectual dishonesty. You see, Dr. Wildung has never seen or studied the individual pieces of the collection, but instead relies on two discredited reports from someone named William J. Young of the Boston Museum, and another named Dr. H.W. Muller of the University of Munich.

As you will read in the pages that follow, leading Egyptologists such as Drs. E. Drioton, S. Gabra, A.L. Becker-Colonna, G. Nolli, C. Desroches Noblecourt and P. du Bourguet, have studied this collection and findings and conclusions are supported by overwhelming scientific evidence that the Mansoor Amarna Collection is genuine. Justice demands an end to academic and intellectual dishonesty.

Legal process commands that the Mansoor Amarna collection have a fair, impartial and just hearing based on facts that are supported by scientific evidence and physical study of each piece of this collection.

Hopefully, this book will vindicate the collection and the Mansoor family and put to rest the unfounded and biased claims of pseudo-Egyptologists.

Judge George Xanthos
Superior Court of the State of California in and for
the County of Los Angeles


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