possiblepineapple - welcome
I saw someone on here called scholar on here saying that it somehow destroyed both COJ and Hermann Hunger but how?
'scholar' has set up an iron fence around his mind and often shoots out bombastic and exaggerated language to frighten away any disconfirming evidence presented to him. Furuli's imaginings about tampering have destroyed nothing except perhaps his own credibility.
Regarding the alleged tampering, have you seen Prof. Hunger's response? Look under headings,
Chapter 6 (near the top of the web page)
Section C4 ...“Is the name ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ and the numbers ‘37’ and ‘38’ original?” (found about half way)
An Emotional Section (found at the bottom)
http://www.lavia.org/english/archivo/VAT4956en.htm
I was looking at this website, and assuming thats an actual picture of the tablet itself, I don't see how it could have been tampered with, although correct me if I'm wrong on it being the actual copy.
It is the tablet. Please take care with the lavia site's comments about it, though. There are several mistakes. I emailed the site about them in Jan. 2012; they responded favorably and said they would correct them. They haven't done so yet.
It also seems rather unprofessional of F. to make such an assertion without actually confirming it with a specialist, he should really have gotten in contact with someone to verify or dispell his claim rather than just making assumptions like this. F. clearly isn't a stupid man, but he's no historian and should really be contacting people who specialise in the subject.
Absolutely it was unprofessional to make such an assertion without any evidence to back it up and quite rightly he has been called on it. In his recent 3rd edition of Vol. II, Furuli spends time backpeddling on this point (p. 283ff.), saying he didn't make those accusations, or didn't mean them in that way, and that he was misunderstood by Hunger who, although "one of the world's most experienced scholars as far as ancient astronomical texts are concerned, his ability to understand the semantics of English prose texts has some deficiencies" (p. 283) and, although "an expert in the reading of astronomical tablets, he evidently has less knowledge of translation theory and English grammar" (p. 294).
It is HUGELY ironic (as well as barefaced chutzpah) that Furuli hits this low at Hunger because he's made some awful gaffes of his own and this time, some pages later (p. 313), he shows embarrassing misunderstandings of Hunger's comments (in English) in ADRT V regarding a lunar eclipse tablet, getting the wrong end of the stick, and then blaming Hunger's misapplication of the data!
In the interest of fairness, going back to the alleged tampering and Hunger's answer that "there is no way of successfully adding cuneiform writing to a dried tablet," Furuli has now said (p. 293) he's consulted someone experienced in studying and identifying forgeries - David Hauer, "MA in technical conservation," who "is working for the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage." Mr. Hauer has written Furuli and confirmed it is possible to "reactivate the workability of the dried clay" and add cuneiform signs in a way to "make the alteration more difficult to trace."
The fact remains that Furuli still talks in hypotheticals. He has brought forward no evidence that VAT 4956 has been tampered with or forged or even that the Seleucids accidentally or deliberately spliced two different years' data together on one tablet. It is purely wishful thinking on Furuli's part because he simply doesn't want the tablet's contents to verify the conventional chronology and he's wanting to find all kinds of weird and wonderful ways to discredit its testimony.
