AT first glance, there is nothing suspicious about the collection of bronze statues at the Radya Pustaka Museum, Solo, Central Java. Everything looks as if it dates from the past. But there is no fooling the eyes of an archaeologist. Not all of the collection is genuine.

At the beginning of 2007, a team from the Antiquities Preservation Association (BP3) carried out a study. Their findings were shocking: only 33 of the 85 bronze statues in the