ARCHAEOLOGICAL HOAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19882, 28 February 1928, Page 9

ARCHAEOLOGICAL HOAX.

DISCOVERIES AT OLOZEk

FARMER'S FAMILY ARRESTED.

POLICE SEIZE SEVERAL ARTICLES Bv Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received February 27, 8.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. PARIS, Feb. 26. The controversy between eminent French and foreign archaeologists about the Glozel finds has taken a sensational turn. The police to-day seized six tablets, a mould, two files and other tools found in the house of the farmer, Fradin, on whose land the tablets were discovered. The members of Fradin's family were arrested. They had been charging an entrance fee for inspecting the finds. The action of the police was the outcome of a formal charge of fraud made by the Prehistoric Society. The latter characterises Glozel as a vast hoax, which tends to discredit French scientific work.

Several objects were found in September, 1927, at Glozel, near Vichy, which gave rise to the controversy referred to in the cablegram. The site was sequestered and scheduled by the French Government as an ancient monument of national importance. The views of eminent archaeologists on the matter have differed widely. One of them, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, wrote to the Times: "Glozel is a tiny hamlet near Vichy, in Central France. It lies hidden away in the mountains and is not an easy place to get to. It consists of four houses only, forming a farm occupied by a peasant family named Fradin. In March, 1924, young Fradin, then apparently a boy in his teens, was ploughing in a field there, when he struck some big stones with his plough. He set to work and soon revealed what was evidently tho debris of a glass-furnace. Exactly a year ago, when I first heard of Glozel, I determihed to go there and 6ee for myself. I was shown the site and the finds by young Fradin and Dr. Morlet, The so-called excavations had evidently been conducted as badly as excavations could be. There was no order visible — only a chaotic mess of holes, like the Somme battlefield in miniature. I left convinced that the glass-furnace had existed, but that everything else was a modern fabrication "

On October 25, the London newspaper, the Daily Sketch, said that Hunter Charles Rogers, who had often been exposed in that paper as a dealer in spurious documents and pictures, asserted that he placed the relics found at Glozel, France. Rogers stated that with an Englishman, who had since gone to America, ne went to France with some stones,, implements and vases. The two men induced Fradin to help them dig these articles in. The idea was to lead a discovery party to the spot in 1928. Rogers ran out of money, however, and in order to benefit himself the farmer began "discovering" the things prematurely. Most of the articles were genuine, others were copies Rogers had made. He bought some genuine prehistoric relics and had a few genuine stones, which bore prehistoric drawings of reindeer and' horses. He had made more by scratching the stones with glass and old razor blades. It was easy, he said, to deceive experts. "I am only a Buckinghamshire farm labourer, but I have hoaxed the world in my time," added Rogers. A commission of experts set up by the French Government condemned the finds as fraudulent. Early this year an investigation was carried out by Sir Arthur Evans, an English archaeologist. He corroborated the verdict of the commission. He said: "That the Glozel 'relics' are one and all the work of the same industrious hand I have no shadow of doubt, and it is difficult to understand how they can deceive .any expert eye. The finds themselves present the most startling incongruities. The culture which is here supposed to have revealed itself is of all ages. In its repeated engravings of reindeer it is still Magdalenian. Its implements are misshapen copies of Neolithic. Other objects, including a crude schist imitation of an advanced type of arrowhead, reflect the Age of Metals, while the script itself contains selections from historic alphabets."