In 2005 DE was contacted by a mysterious bedouin Arab and asked to look at some objects found in caves in Northern Jordan. Expecting to dismiss them as ‘more leather or parchment fakes’, David, much to his surprise found that the artefacts were made entirely of lead - and realised immediately that they were unique: they were codices: early books and if they were fakes what were they fakes of?
Twelve years and many laboratory tests later, the Jordan Lead Codices have been authenticated and identified, by eminent scholars, as the only Hebrew-Christian documents in existence, documents belonging to the earliest years of the nascent Christian movement - and what they have to reveal is an entirely new approach to an understanding of history.
At once revelatory and revealing this talk will be accompanied by images and promises an exclusive look into images not yet seen or discussed beyond the scholarly team at present engaged on analyses of these remarkable objects.
Who was Jesus? What really was his role in the foundation of what would become Christianity? Was Christianity really created by the controversial figure of Paul, or does it all go back to a time and a period a thousand years before Christ?

David will talk about the process of analysing the books and about the latest scholarly research into the Lead Codices - and about what happens next.

David Elkington trained as a painter at the Bath Academy of Art in the early 80's and went on to study Egyptology under Julia Samson at the Egypt Exploration Society. Decidedly independent in outlook and training David's first book was a thesis on the theme of acoustics and the rise of cursive script. The thesis outlined a new look at an old chestnut - that written script is not a human invention but an environmental response mechanism at the time when Humankind was emerging from its troglodytic existence.
David has produced three books on the codices with Jennifer Solignac his partner in the adventure, but has yet to tell the full story.