JERUSALEM, June 19 — Israel's archaeological experts declared today that an ancient limestone burial box, which bears an inscription suggesting it held the remains of Jesus' brother James, is a modern forgery.

When the existence of the burial box, or ossuary, was announced last October, it stirred great excitement as potentially the earliest historical artifact linked to Jesus.

But after a lengthy investigation, the Antiquities Authority of Israel said it found overwhelming evidence that the inscription was a fake produced in modern times.

"The bottom line is that every single scholar who examined this came to the conclusion that the inscription was not authentic; it was done recently by a very skillful artist," said Dr. Gideon Avni, director of excavations and surveys for the Antiquities Authority and one of 14 experts who took part in the investigation.

The authority also said a small stone tablet, purported to be from the ninth century B.C. and featuring Hebrew-language instructions on maintaining the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, was also a fake.

An Israeli collector, Oded Golan, had possession of both items and attempted to sell the tablet for $2 million dollars, according to Shuka Dorfman, head of the Antiquities Authority.

Mr. Golan rejected the findings. "I am certain that the committee is wrong regarding its conclusions," Mr. Golan was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

Police have been investigating the case with the help of the Antiquities Authority, but no arrests have been made, a police spokesman, Shmulik Ben Ruby, said.

The 20-inch long ossuary, which was common in Jewish burial ceremonies in the first centuries B.C. and A.D., has an inscription in the Aramaic language that reads, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

The New Testament on several occasions says that Jesus had a brother named James, who became a leader of a Christian community in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus. James was executed by stoning in A.D. 63, according to the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.

At the time, it was a common Jewish practice to place the body in a burial cave for about a year. When only the bones remained, they were then placed in a small ossuary.

Only a small number of the burial boxes were inscribed, and they usually belonged to prominent people. It is not clear whether the early Christians followed the same burial ceremonies as the Jews.

The most convincing evidence of fraud was the lack of the stone's patina, the natural fossilized sheen, in the indentations where the inscription was made, the Antiquities Authority said.

The scholars concluded that the ossuary itself was an original dating back some 2,000 years, while the writing is of a much more recent vintage, though they could not pinpoint the date.

The inscription had been partially filled in with modern materials including dirt, carbon and small flecks of gold in an attempt to make it look ancient, the officials said.

"The lab reports found that these specific materials don't exist in the Jerusalem area," Mr. Dorfman said.

Also, the latter part of the inscription, which refers to Jesus, is in a separate style of writing, the Antiquities Authority said.

Scholars have been debating the authenticity since the ossuary became public last October, and some leading experts said they believed it was genuine.

Dr. Andre Lemaire, a French specialist in biblical texts, inspected the burial box and wrote last fall in the Biblical Archaeology Review that "it seems very probable that this is the ossuary of the James in the New Testament."

But some Israeli authorities expressed suspicions from the beginning based on the shadowy ways in which the ossuary and the tablet came to public notice.

Mr. Golan, who is in his early 50's, initially attempted to conceal his identity and connection to the artifacts.

When he was eventually questioned by authorities, he said he bought the ossuary from an antiquities dealer in Jerusalem's Old City in the mid-1970's, but did not know the name of the seller or the place where it was excavated.

Israel's antiquities laws say that any item excavated since 1978 belongs to the state. Despite efforts to regulate antiquities, the legal, gray and black markets all do brisk business, according to officials.

The stone tablet came to public attention two years ago and was hailed as possibly the strongest historical evidence of the biblical account of the first Jewish temple, built by King Solomon in 10th century B.C. and destroyed in B.C. 586 by the Babylonians.

The inscription is attributed to the Yoash, the Jewish king who ruled over Jerusalem at the end of the ninth century B.C.

The Antiquities Authority found that the language used in the 15-line inscription contained linguistic mistakes and Hebrew words of modern origin that could not have been used at the time.

While Jerusalem is rich in stone, the tablet was from material not found in the area, Mr. Dorfman said.

The Antiquities Authority completed a three-month examination of the burial box and returned it to Mr. Golan last week. The authority still holds the tablet.

Israeli officials and archaeologists said there was little doubt the two items were part of a larger industry of forged antiquities.

"We want to find out who is behind this," said Mr. Dorfman, whose office is responsible for licensing antiquities dealers in Israel. "We know we have large dealers who are making some fakes, and some also order robberies" of archaeological sites.

Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University, said that "a hundred years ago, the technology to make forgeries didn't really exist. Now, people who make these forgeries are very sophisticated."

Any archaeological find that has not come from a controlled, well-documented excavation should be regarded with suspicion, she said.

Dr. Avni concurred, but said there was evidence of forged antiquities dating back to the mid-1ninth century.

"We don't know how many forgeries were produced in the past," he said. "I believe we should go back to museums, here and in other countries, and check to see if important items are authentic."

The 14 experts who investigated the items included archaeologists, linguists and scientists from the Antiquities Authority, leading Israeli universities and the country's Geological Survey.

Christians have three different interpretations regarding the kinship of James to Jesus. Protestants generally read the New Testament to mean that James was the son of Joseph and Mary; in this case, Mary presumably gave birth to Jesus as a virgin and then had James and other children. A second interpretation, dominant in the Eastern Orthodox Church, regards James as a son of Joseph by a previous marriage. Roman Catholics tend to regard the word "brother" to mean any close relative; perhaps James was a cousin, the son of Joseph's brother, which would accord with teachings of Mary's "perpetual virginity."

By GREG MYRE for New York Times

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