One of the greatest archaeological scandals involves Glosel, a small village near Vichy in southern France.
Glozel's writings were highly controversial and finally rejected by critics. The main reason: proof of their authenticity would mean that the alphabet appeared thousands of years before a person was supposed to come up with this very alphabet.
Some of the best archaeological experts were involved in the scandal. Divided into two discussion groups, some claimed that the artifacts found in Glosel were of revolutionary importance for the study of human prehistory, others considered them nothing more than fiction.
What happened in Glozel
On March 1, 1924, a young French farmer, Emile Fradin, was plowing a field when one of the bulls fell into a shallow underground cavity half a meter deep.
Its bottom was covered with stones and tiles, as if glazed with intense heat. The painting resembled a medieval glass oven. On the "tiled floor" were old clay pots, a polished stone ax, and several curious vessels that looked like skulls wearing space helmets. One of them was even called a "space traveler." Suddenly Fradin discovered mysterious clay tablets covered with symbols similar to Latin letters.
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Research has shown that some of the artifacts are around 2000 years old. Other finds, the origin of which could not be determined, were much older.
During the first four months after its discovery, many researchers visited the facility. For example, a local school teacher from a nearby village, Mr. Clement, unexpectedly showed up with a man who introduced himself as an important person. They broke the remaining walls in the underground chamber and took them away. A few weeks later, the site was credited with Gallo-Roman origins.
Attempts to solve the mystery
In January 1925, amateur archaeologist Albert Morlet decided to visit Fradina's farm. He believed that the finds from Glosel were more ancient. After researching, Morlaix discovered tablets and other stone artifacts and declared the site a Neolithic object that was at least 12,000-15,000 years old. And a fierce battle of learned minds began.
Professor Dorothy Garrod, an English member of the 1927 Glosel Commission, for example, accused Emil Fradin of producing fake artifacts. And the respected director of the French Museum of National Antiquities, Dr. Salomon Reinach, was on the side of Emil Fradin.
An archaeological reputation was at stake and it was time to defend it by any means necessary.
That same year, 1927, a commission of eight prominent archaeologists selected by the Bureau of the International Institute of Anthropology unanimously concluded that over 3,000 artifacts found in the first two years were forgeries. For another five years, archaeologists have consistently argued that Glosel's findings are fictions, although all the evidence showed that this was definitely not the case.
Unusual artifact with symbols.
In 1975, Professor Colin Renfrew of the University of Southampton and one of the acclaimed critics of the Glosel facility said there was something "not quite right" about studying artifacts. Renfrew challenged the evidence through carbon studies, showing that some of the invaluable finds were centuries old, and some thousands of years old. They were not forgeries created by Emil Fradin, and therefore the professor made a statement:
Glosel was never properly researched because many scientists simply wanted to erase the existence of these artifacts. The scriptures of the clay tablets are still undefined, although they are similar to the language of the Phoenicians. Generally Accepted Theory: They are made up of several magical signs used by witches or possibly sorcerers. To this day, it is difficult to find anyone willing to even discuss this site in archaeological sites.
Young Emil Fradin in his museum.
One thing is for sure - Glosel will forever remain a symbol of the resistance of the archaeological elite in the objective study of scientific discoveries associated with a serious academic error, a scientific battle for reputation, and not with artifacts found in a small French village.