Post removed.

Malcolm_Y, could you repost this question without the "or are they all frauds" part, and preferably replacing "could actually be" with "are"? Two reasons:

First, this presupposes that they are all or at least mostly frauds and that anything that is what it's purported to be would be a rarity, plus the term fraud is a somewhat negatively loaded term. All of this adds up to running afoul of the no soapboxing or loaded questions rule.

Second, using language like this typically turns off the very experts that you'd presumably want addressing this, i.e. experts in religion / religious archaeology. So if you want this question to be taken seriously by people that actually specialize in this topic, ask the question in a more open-minded and respectful way.

thx.