LARAMIE (AP) - New testimony by a prominent archaeologist should settle questions about the authenticity of a burial box purported to have been that of Jesus' brother, a University of Wyoming professor says.

An inscription in Aramaic - "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" - appeared on the empty ossuary, a limestone burial box for bones.

The Israel Antiquities Authority in June concluded that the inscription on the so-called James ossuary is modern writing carved onto an ancient ossuary and was a fraud.

Promoters of the ossuary's authenticity, however, have charged the IAA is persecuting them and insist the box is not a fake.

Paul Flesher, director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wyoming, said testimony by an Israeli archaeologist shows the ossuary had only part of the inscription written on it in the early 1990s.

Flesher said the rest - "brother of Jesus" - was added later.

"This backs up the conclusion that the second half of the inscription, 'brother of Jesus,' was carved in recent years and would make it a blatant forgery," he said.

The archaeologist, Flesher said, told Israeli police he saw the ossuary in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem with only part of the inscription in the early 1990s. The statement also debunks the ossuary owner's claims he bought the box in the 1970s, Flesher said.

"This is important because in 1978, Israel enacted a law criminalizing the buying and selling of newly discovered antiquities," he said. "If the ossuary in any form was for sale in the 1990s and Golan purchased it, then he would be liable to severe penalties for that transaction."

Flesher, one of 14 experts who examined the ossuary, said efforts to authenticate the burial box have wasted scholars' time and money.

"More significantly, claims made by the current owner of the box have misled millions of Christian believers who hoped that here, at last, was a real, physical link to Jesus and his family," he said.