- Global falsification of history. Part one -
- Falsification of history. Part three. Falsification of archaeological finds. Antiquities forgeries -
In 1939, the museum's management acquired an allegedly ancient Scythian product - a drinking horn. Moreover, the same horn was bought by the historical museum in Moscow in 1908. Both of these items came from the workshop of the Hoffman brothers in Ochakov. They ran a firm that produced such fakes for jewelers. The clients of the firm were museums in England, Italy, France, Russia, Germany, Greece. A network of figureheads was developed.
For example, a certain peasant woman, Anyuta from the village of Perutino, visited museums many times, offering to buy antiquities from her. At the same time, she told in great detail and reliably how and where she found these things. And to one collector, the Hoffmanov firm even provided the opportunity to make a find himself. Having excavated an ancient burial, the collector allegedly accidentally found an ancient product. In fact, of course, it was a fake that the Hoffmanns had planted in the grave in advance. But the famous Alcheo Dossena was considered the king of ancient falsification. He was a brilliant forger who made the so-called antique statues in the antique style, and sculptures in the Gothic style, and marble sarcophagi, and statuettes from three thousand years ago.
For years, his workshop has been flooding the market with fake antiquities. In private collections and museums in Europe and America, one could find sculptures created in Dossel's workshop. They were considered the works of Donatello, Verrocchio, Dafesol, Rossellino and other luminaries of the Renaissance. In 1927, Dossena made a self-disclosure statement. Needless to say, they didn't believe him. The last non-believers were convinced by a film filmed in Dossena's workshop. In front of the camera lens, the sculptor calmly created his last, this time legal forgery, an antique statue of a goddess. However, very often museums are not interested in an impartial study of the so-called ancient finds and refuse to listen to frank confessions of forgers.
The work of forgers can be found not only in the walls of museums, but also in ancient temples. One of the most scandalous falsifications of recent times is the forgery of frescoes in the hospital of the "holy spirit" and the church of St. Mary in the German city of Lubeck. The story of this falsification began in 1942, when, due to bombing, part of the plaster collapsed, revealing fragments of the thirteenth-century mural. After the war in 1948, it was decided to restore the frescoes. The city authorities invited a certain Dietrich Fey as a restorer. It was a rather strange choice, because Fey had previously been tried for counterfeiting a work of art. This restorer also attracted the assistant Lotor Malskat, also a major specialist in forgeries. After the completion of the restoration, they announced that they had discovered an ancient painting on the walls of the church choirs,hidden by late layers.
Three years later, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Lübeck, the inauguration of the restored church and hospital took place. A postage stamp was even issued in honor of this event. Probably, these frescoes would still be considered authentic if the city authorities awarded both restorers for their work. But only Dietrich Fey received the award cross, and Malscat received nothing. He was greatly offended and admitted that at the insistence of the Fairy, he knocked down the frescoes of the thirteenth century and painted new ones from the surviving photographs. A special commission examined the frescoes and said that Malskat was lying. Then the virtuoso restorer asked the members of the commission to take a closer look at the faces of the saints. The commission peered up and gasped. The saints had faces: Genghis Khan, Rasputin, Marlene Dietrich, and even Malskat's own sister. The scandal grew, and the commission saw other masterpieces of the restorers. In particular, other forged frescoes in the Church of St. Catherine in the same Lubeck. By the way, it turned out that Malskat did not even shoot down the old frescoes, but wrote directly on them. Unfortunately, later it was not possible to restore the painting of the thirteenth century. In the history of architecture, not only material falsification is often encountered, but also chronological falsification.
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Historians deliberately increase the age of some ancient buildings by hundreds of years. A typical example of this is the Cologne Cathedral, in addition to its majestic architecture, it is known for the fact that the remains of the Holy Magi are kept here, or as they are also called the Three Kings, who were the first to come to worship the newborn Jesus and the Mother of God. It is believed that the construction of the cathedral began in 1248. Historians even call the exact date August 15th. Presumably the construction of the cathedral took over three hundred years and was completed around 1560. In publications about the history of the Cologne Cathedral it is written that after the sixteenth century, the cathedral was only partially restored, but in general its appearance remained practically unchanged. However, this statement of historians, to put it mildly, does not correspond to reality.
This is a diagram of the Cologne Cathedral, shown in the brochure, which can be obtained from the staff of the temple. It clearly shows which parts of it were built in the Middle Ages, and which in the nineteenth, and even in the twentieth century. The author of the brochure is Professor Arnold Wolf. So, the most ancient masonry, made, according to historians from 1248 to 1560, is shown in the diagram by horizontal shading. Amazingly, the most ancient masonry is only a small part of the modern building. About half of the foundation of the cathedral. The rest of the masonry was made after 1826. It turns out that the cathedral that we see today was actually completely built in the nineteenth century. And the Scaligerian story assures that a medieval temple is in front of our eyes. But on what basis? Are there genuine medieval depictions of a Cologne cathedral? The brochure contains only an engraving from 1836. Most likely, the construction of the cathedral began in 1825 and ended in the thirties of the nineteenth century. That is, it took about ten years to build it.
On an engraving from 1836, the artist depicted the last stage of the creation of the temple. Then the cathedral was restored several times and even rebuilt, but the appearance remained almost unchanged. However, there really was some ancient structure on this place. The diagram shows that this medieval masonry was used, including for the construction of the cathedral in the nineteenth century. The lower part of the left tower is lined with stones of the nineteenth century, and stones of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries are laid between them. And the upper half of the tower, like the second, was entirely created only in the nineteenth century. This means that in the nineteenth century, the medieval building, located on the site of the modern Cologne cathedral, was dismantled, and its material was used for the construction of an actually new building. By the way, it is completely unclear how modern archaeologists date,fragments of the medieval are smooth. How do they know that these stones were laid in 1248 and others in 1560. There is no evidence of such dating. It is possible that these stones were laid here in the seventeenth, or even in the eighteenth century. In general, the age of a particular structure cannot be judged by its appearance.
Traveling around the world and seeing the sights of different countries, we should not believe everything that the guides tell us. The stories they memorized that they repeat day in and day out are very often not based on anything. They have no documentary evidence. And the history of many so-called ancient monuments cannot be traced beyond the eighteenth century AD. Some of them continue to be completed even today, right in front of tourists. And then the guides will tell them that these walls are hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. The building looks so old.
There is a cave in Crimea with a lot of natural stone. Local residents have always used it for construction needs. And today you can see piles of stones prepared by someone for construction or restoration work. Outwardly, this stone looks very old.
If this wall is nevertheless completed, then after some time the guides will be able to show it to gullible tourists, like a structure, for example, of the sixteenth century.
And this is the coast of the Dead Sea. The settlements of Qumran, which historians date to the eighth, sixth centuries BC, have been destroyed. Of course, the builders did not leave any tablets indicating the foundation of the ancient settlement. Therefore, historians and archaeologists, as always, determined the age of the finds themselves.
When you look at the ruins up close, you can clearly see that the cement that holds the stones together was laid quite recently. Basically, for some reason it is painted in Terracotta color. But in some places they didn't even paint.
But these neat notches made during the laying of cement, we, most likely, should take for ancient chips and cracks. Perhaps, archaeologists have some irrefutable evidence that these buildings were built ten centuries ago. But what is on display looks more like a decoration than an ancient settlement.
- Global falsification of history. Part one -
- Falsification of history. Part three. Falsification of archaeological finds. Antiquities forgeries -