The Glozel Case Is A Symbol Of Disgrace Lies And Shame – Archaeological Scandal Of The Century

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Today's article is about one, especially puzzling and bizarre archaeological mystery - the Glozel writings. It is about a grave academic mistake, scholars' hostile circle of rivalry, the battle for reputations, well-established theories, disgrace, and lies.

One of the greatest archaeological scandals has its roots at Glozel, a small village near Vichy in southern France.

The Glozel writings were much disputed and finally rejected by the critics. The main reason for their rejection is that the writings - if genuine - indicate the use of a written alphabet thousands of years before man was supposed to have come up with an idea of such thing as the alphabet.
The scandal involved some of the best archaeological experts, divided into two debating groups either proclaiming that the artifacts found at Glozel were of revolutionary significance to the study of human prehistory or were nothing more than complete fakes.

What happened at Glozel on March 1, 1924?

On March 1, 1924, a young French farm worker Emile Fradin, was plowing the field with some oxen when one of them stepped into a shallow underground chamber, approximately three meters in length and 50 centimeters deep.

The chamber was lined with glass-covered stones and tiles, glazed as though by intense heat and resembled a medieval glass kiln or a primitive glassworks.
On the tiled floor, there were old clay pots, a polished stone ax-head, and several other curious vessels that look like skulls clad in space helmets. One of them has even been called "the space traveler".
Finally, Fradin's grandson also pulled out mysterious clay tablets covered with characters that neither of them could decipher, but which contained letters similar to ours like for example C, H, I, J, K, L, O, T, V, W, and X.

Tests have shown that some of the artifacts are about 2,000 years old, but others are still indisputably very ancient and, moreover, of completely unknown origin!

Why have all artifacts been gathered in one very specific place?
There were many who visited Fradin's place during the first four months after the discovery. A local schoolteacher from the neighboring village, M. Clement, for example, appeared unexpectedly with a man, who presented himself as Viple. Both visitors broke down the remaining walls in the underground chamber and took them away.
Some weeks later, it was announced that the place was of Gallo-Roman origin. Later, M. Clement claimed that he showed the young Emile Fradin illustrated archaeological books before any inscribed tablet was found.
Unfortunately, many who later came to Glozel's excavation site seem to have taken Clement at his word...

In January 1925, a Vichy physician and amateur archaeologist, Dr. Albert Morlet decided to visit Fradin's farm. Morlet was only an "amateur specialist" in the Gallo-Roman period (1st to 5th century AD).

Unfortunately, amateur researchers have never been taken very seriously by the scientific community.
Morlet believed that the objects from Glozel were older and offered the Fradins 200 francs per year to be allowed to continue with the excavation.

Morlet discovered tablets, idols, bone and flint tools, and engraved stones. He identified the site as Neolithic and announced that this was a prehistoric site, and the objects were at least 12,000-15,000 years old.

And so a furious battle began...
Professor Dorothy Garrod, the English member of the Glozel Commission of 1927, for example, said that after the schoolteacher Clement's arrival Fradin "began to produce strange things which didn't fit in at all with what have been found before..." Her statement was not true and Clement's statement definitely conflicted with contemporary evidence. M. Clement did not appear on the scene until four months later in July 1924. More than forty visitors to the site later went on record in different journals and court depositions stating that first tablets covered with the mysterious writing were [already] among the first, genuine discoveries.

These were the facts; however, no one bothered with the facts. Instead, Emile Fradin was accused of producing fake artifacts under tuition.

Dorothy Garrod continued to spread her lies, the distinguished director of the French Museum of National Antiquities, Dr. Salomon Reinach, who believed the finds of Glozel dated to c. 4000 BC., personally encouraged Emile Fradin's interest and sent him books and documents, having "the effect of launching him on a career of organized forgery".

That was not true either, but apparently, some archaeological reputations were at stake and it was time to defend them using any means necessary.
In 1927, Glozel Commission, consisting of eight prominent archaeologists chosen by the Bureau of the International Institute of Anthropology, unanimously concluded that more than 3,000 artifacts - unearthed in the first two years - were forgeries. Also five years later, archaeologists continuously claimed that the Glozel artifacts were fakes, though all the evidence had revealed that this was definitely not the case.

The Glozel discovery brought chaos to the establishment of the antiquity of humankind. Moreover, it didn't fit the accepted scientific explanation of human prehistory in that region and the whole Europe as well.

In 1975, Professor Colin Renfrew of Southampton University and one of the enthusiastic critics of the Glozel site said that there is something about Glozel, which is "not quite right". Renfrew was namely challenged with evidence obtained by carbon and thermoluminescence (TL) dating that had shown that some of the Glozel invaluable findings were centuries old and others were thousands of years old!

They were not forgeries created by Emile Fradin and so Renfrew made a statement:

"The three papers, taken together, suggest strongly that the pottery and terracotta objects from Glozel, including the inscribed tablets, should be regarded as genuine, and with them, presumably, the remainder of the material... I still find it beyond my powers of imagination to take Glozel entirely seriously."

From the beginning, there were many archaeological problems with the Glozel' site - one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of revolutionary meaning.

Glozel was never competently excavated because many scholars, in fact, wanted to forget Glozel, to erase its existence.

"…On the field of battle lie the corpses of several learned reputations... We shall not refer again to Glozel - unless greatly provoked," an English archaeologist, Osbert G. S. Crawford (1886 -1957) reminded his colleagues in his attempt to suppress the Glozel controversy.

In his Quarterly Review of World Archaeology, "Antiquity (1927), Crawford wrote:

"our field is the Earth, our range in time a million years or so, our subject the human race…"

One may wonder, why was there no place to refer to Glozel and its prehistoric treasures in… the time range of one million years?

Dr. Morlet ended his excavations in 1938, but a full report was never published.

The writing on the Glozel clay tablets is still undeciphered and the commonly accepted theory is that it consists of a number of magical signs used locally by some … witches or perhaps magicians.

However, one thing is for sure.
The Glozel case will forever remain as a symbol of the archaeological establishment's resistance to objectively investigate scientific findings. There were unfounded accusations, lies, and fury among the scientists, but as an old expression says: "the end justifies the means".

Glozel remains banned from the pages of Antiquity, but once again, the "barbarians" of Neolithic Europe had knowledge and skills long before they are supposed to.
The undeciphered writing keeps all the secrets of the ancient underground chamber at Glozel.

The site of Glozel has been a disgrace to French and English archaeology for almost 90 years. The scholars created a hostile circle of rivalry and accused the amateur discoverer of the artifacts and the amateur archaeologist of fraud... and in this way, we will remember the discovery that took place on March 1, 1924, at Glozel, near Vichy, in Southern France.

We will always associate Glozel with a grave academic mistake, a scientific battle for reputations and well-established theories, and not with artifacts discovered on March 1, 1924, in the small village near Vichy, in Southern France.

Written by – A. Sutherland  - AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

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