One of the most mysterious and controversial archaeological finds of the twentieth century was made by accident. In the French region of Auvergne, 30 kilometers from the city of Vichy, in the town of Glosel, on March 1, 1924, a 17-year-old peasant youth Emile Fraden, together with his grandfather, went out in the spring to plow a field. The peasants plowed in the old fashioned way, on bulls.
Suddenly, the leg of one of the bulls pulling the plow fell into the ground. The young man began to free the bull's leg, but he himself fell into the hole. And the pit on the field turned out to be a secret hiding place: the walls are faced with bricks, the floor is covered with clay tiles. Inside lay human bones, ceramic fragments, tools made of stone and bone with engraved drawings, bowls that looked like human heads without mouths, clay tablets with mysterious signs …
The village teacher Andriena Pikande became interested in this amazing find. She wrote letters about her to local scientific societies. The regional scientific society sent "specialists" to the village - a teacher from a small neighboring town, Benoit Clement, and, oddly enough, prosecutor Joseph Vilpe.
In June 1924, carrying out an assignment to study the find of farmers, they began to cheerfully excavate the mysterious man-made grotto as best they could. After their labors, the first excavation site was practically destroyed, and Clement and Villepin took many of the objects found with them.
A few weeks later, prosecutor Vilpe told young Emil Fraden that the objects he had found were of no scientific or cultural interest. However, the second "specialist", Benoit Clement, officially announced the discovery of archaeological values, he was especially interested in tablets with mysterious inscriptions found in the grotto.
Research Morlaix
The artifacts became known to the physician and passionate archaeologist from the city of Vichy, Antonin Morlaix, who later became one of the most staunch defenders of the authenticity of the Glozel finds. He met with the teacher Benoit Clement, examined the objects found in Glosel and found that they are of great scientific value. Antonin Morlet had long studied the Gallo-Roman era and was well versed in archeology. But he considered that the objects found are much older than antiquity and may even belong to the Neolithic era.
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How else to explain the presence of bone harpoons and images of reindeer, which were found in Auvergne 10 thousand years BC? And how to explain the tablets with inscriptions made in strange letters, some of which resembled the ancient Phoenician alphabet, others the Cretan alphabet, others the Semitic, and others did not look like anything at all? Did people already own writing in the Neolithic era?
Antonin Morlaix decided to fund new excavations in the Fraden family field. For 200 francs (a lot of money at that time), the archaeologist rented the field.
Morlaix's excavations lasted 11 years. He found numerous clay tablets with inscriptions, handprints, human bones, clay sculptures of phalluses, bracelets with inscriptions, bowls in the form of human heads, remains of ceramics, glass, bone, horn and wood, and engraved hewn stones. The archaeologist was happy - he made a grandiose discovery, found a hitherto unknown, touched the ancient secrets.
However, the scientific community immediately challenged Antonin Morlet's dating. The most doubts among scientists were caused by tablets with inscriptions and images of reindeer. If these deer became extinct in France 10,000 years BC, then everyone knows that the oldest inscriptions on earth appeared only 3300 years BC, and in the Middle East, not in France.
Some Glozel letters are similar to the Phoenician alphabet, but it is believed to have been invented around the 15th century BC. And on these unshakable postulates dozens of dissertations, scientific schools and the reputation of scientists have already been built. How can all these contradictions be resolved?
Two opposing camps
In April 1926, Antonin Morlet published an article with his hypothesis on the Neolithic dating of the Glosel tablets alphabet. He had no doubt that these inscriptions were much older than the famous Phoenician texts.
Heated discussions began. The scientific community was divided into two camps: supporters and opponents of the Morlet theory. These groups even began to be called "Glozelites" and "antiglozeltsy". The latter spoke very ironically about the finds: what is so outstanding that provincial amateur archaeologists and a peasant boy can discover?
Some scientists, who had initially publicly declared the authenticity of the Glozel finds, suddenly moved to the anti-Glozel camp, and not always for purely scientific reasons. For example, archaeologists Captain and Bray were offended because Morlaix, who had done all the titanic work on the excavations for many years, refused to include them in the list of co-authors, after which they began to declare forgeries. Another scientific authority of those times joined the anti-Glozelians because Emil Fraden refused to sell him his collection of ancient artifacts, etc.
Legal Disputes
Legal disputes and courts began around Glosel. René Dussault, curator of the Louvre and renowned specialist in ancient inscriptions, accused Emile Fraden of forgeries. The offended Emil responded by suing him for libel. The young man devoted several years to the study of ancient finds, created a small private museum on his farm, where he exhibited the found antiquities.
Felix Regnault, President of the French Prehistoric Society, also visited Glosel. After his visit to the small museum on Fraden's farm, he filed a complaint with the police "for fraud" on the grounds that the price of 4 francs per ticket seemed to him too high. The next day, the police, accompanied by Monsieur Regnault himself, searched the museum and seized three boxes of antiquities and documents. Emile Fraden himself, who wrote the book Glozel and My Life in his old age, described this visit of the police as the destruction of his museum.
At this time, the study of the Glozel archaeological antiquities reached the level of the criminal police. The head of the Paris forensic service, Gaston-Edmond Bayle, himself, together with a judge and experts, began to study objects seized by the police during a search in the private museum of Emile Fraden.
In a 1929 report, Baile and forensic experts concluded that the clay tablets were recent forgeries. They stated that the tablets allegedly contained fragments of fresh plants, hair, wool and cotton from fabrics, the layers of which were painted with modern dyes. It seems that the data on the long-term storage of the tablets in the ground have not been confirmed either.
Fake? But then the 17-year-old peasant Emil Fraden, who had barely graduated from a rural school, must be recognized as a genius, an inventor of a new writing system, an expert on Phoenician, Celtic and ancient Iberian texts … History became more and more mysterious.
It became known that the head of the expert service, Beyle, stated that he was a doctor of sciences, without a diploma. He once confused blood tests with feces tests in the most important forensic examination in Belgium, which is why the defense that invited him to the trial failed in court. A few months later, Bayle was killed by a man far removed from archeology.
However, on June 4, 1929, the peasant Emil Fraden was accused of fraud based on the Bayle report. He filed an appeal, the process dragged on for several years, but still Emil won it. He later described this process in his book, likening it to the courts of the Inquisition in a witch hunt. Then in 1932, the unbroken Fraden won a libel case against the curator of the Louvre, who called him a fraud.
Later confession
In 1936, the archaeologist Morlaix decided to interrupt the excavation, leaving many of Glosel's secrets intact for future generations of explorers. And Emil Fraden, who devoted his whole life to a unique archaeological monument and defending its authenticity, nevertheless received recognition, albeit in extreme old age.
On June 16, 1990, Emile Fraden was awarded the Order of the Academic Palms at the suggestion of Jacques Thierry, President of the International Center for the Study and Research of Glozel Finds.
Emile Fraden died in February 2010 at the age of 103 and was buried in his native village of Ferrier-sur-Sichon. The sous-prefect of the city of Vichy, Jean-Pierre Maurice, came to his funeral to pay Emile his last honors.
The 90-year dispute between the Glozelites and the Anti-Glozelites has not ended. A small private museum on Emil Fraden's farm is still working, and tourists can stop by and see the antiquities found by a peasant boy.
A group of enthusiasts has set up an international research center at the excavation site, composed of French and foreign scientists. Every year since 1999 they have gathered in the city of Vichy for regular seminars on the research of finds.
The ambivalent attitude of the state towards Glosel is reflected on a billboard near the road - on such information posters in France, the main local attractions are noted. And this shield clearly shows the Glozel tablets with their mysterious writing. However, the name Glosel itself is not on the panel - its riddle has not been finally solved.
Anastasia GARSIA