“In 1856,” K. Keram informs, “the remains of a skeleton were found near Dusseldorf. When we talk about this find today, we call it the remains of a Neanderthal man, but at that time they were mistaken for the remains of an animal, and only Dr. Fulroth, a gymnasium teacher from Elberfelde, was able to correctly determine the identity of the found skeleton. Professor Mayer from Bonn considered it the skeleton of a Cossack who died in 1814, Wagner from the University of Göttingen thought it was the skeleton of an ancient Dutchman, the Parisian scientist Prüner-Bey claimed that it was the skeleton of an ancient Celtic, and the famous physician Virchow … authoritatively stated that the skeleton belongs to a modern man, however, bears traces of senile deformation. It took science exactly fifty years to establish: the gymnasium teacher from Elberfelde was right."
… All this mass of stone seemed to crush us, it was hard to breathe with our breasts. It seems that the vapors of blood have frozen in this air. It seems that he, without stirring, has stagnated since the last villainy committed under these arches … There is this lopsided mausoleum, this stone chronicle of murders and crimes. While his stones are silent, the casemates and the underground are silent …"
The portrait of the man on the left is known to millions of people: in textbooks it is placed with the inscription “Captain-Commander Vitus Bering”. In fact, the famous strait between Alaska and Chukotka was opened by the one on the right. And the well-known "Bering" is just the navigator's uncle! Confused, but the hero lived in the XVIII century.
There are many examples when scientists were at a dead end when dating a monument, even if this monument is well preserved. And how many jokes and delusions there were!
One archaeologist jokingly threw stone figures of white elephants into the tombs he excavated. In fifty years, he said with a laugh, when the tombs were dug up again, the elephants would turn green. Our grandchildren will break their heads!.. I had to hear about another researcher who, among the inscriptions on a temple in Nepal, engraved frivolous words.
In 1726, Professor Behringer published a book in which he told about the fossils he found together with his beloved students near Würzburg. Accompanied by magnificent engravings that supplement the text, it was reported about flowers, a frog, a spider petrified with a fly it caught, tablets with Hebrew letters and other amazing things. The book was accepted with a bang, it was read … until it became known that all the finds described in it were made by hand by those very favorite students of Professor Beringer. The unfortunate professor spent almost his entire fortune to buy out the entire edition of the book, including those who have already purchased it.
The Arsenal Library of Paris houses a magnificently illustrated book by Abbot Domenech, Manuscript pictographique americain, published in 1860. Later it turned out that the "drawings of the American Indians" were rough sketches of one American boy, not an Indian at all, but a German by birth.
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Winckelmann himself once fell victim to the hoax of the artist Casanova (brother of the famous memoirist). Casanova made three paintings, one of which depicted Jupiter with Ganymede, the other two - dancers, and passed these paintings off the walls in Pompeii. Winckelmann not only believed, but also gave a description of the paintings in his book "Unknown Ancient Monuments" in the following expressions: "The beloved of Jupiter is undoubtedly one of the most striking figures that we inherit from the art of antiquity. I do not know what his face can be compared with: it literally breathes voluptuousness, it seems, for Ganymede in kisses - all life "… Further Winckelmann adds that this is a picture," equal to which no one has ever seen ", and here it is we completely agree with him: indeed, except for Casanova and Winckelmann himself, no one has seen these pictures.
But these are jokes and mistakes. Let's talk seriously. The basis for the interpretation of archaeological finds is the texts of ancient authors, for example Herodotus. How do archaeologists themselves relate to these texts?
That is, having dug up an ancient monument and comparing it with the testimonies of those whom scientists consider to be possible contemporaries of the monument, how seriously do they take this? We quote K. Keram's phrase without comment:
“We mentioned Herodotus, an author whose works still serve as an inexhaustible source of information about dates, works of art and their authors. The works of ancient authors, no matter what time they belong, are the basis of hermeneutics (the art of interpreting texts), but how often they mislead archaeologists! After all, the writer speaks of the highest truth - that he is a banal reality! For him, history, and even more so myths, is only material for creativity."
