THE GLOZEL FINDS

Southland Times, Issue 20772, 13 May 1929, Page 5

THE GLOZEL FINDS

OFFICIAL REPORT ISSUED.

TABLETS MANUFACTURED

(Rec. 5.5 p.m.) * Paris, May 10. The official report on the Glozel finds, issued after a year’s investigation of the inscriptions on the fossils, which divided the world of archaeology into two camps, declares that they are a fake. Though the report was not disclosed to the Press, it is stated that the conclusions are that the tablets were manufactured during the past ten years. A second report will be drawn up dealing with the pottery and the engraved pebbles.—Australian Press Association.

The Glozel finds consisted of about 5000 alleged antique objects in bone, stone and pottery, some bearing inscriptions. M. Dussaud, the Academy expert, openly accused M. Fradin, the farmer on whose land the finds were made, of fraud. He asserted that as Fradin's knowledge of antiquity increased the finds became altered and included more inscriptions, especially after Fradin had borrowed a book on archaeology from a Glozel teacher. The battle between eminent French and foreign archaeologists took a sensational turn when the police seized six tablets, a mould, two files and other tools found in the farmhouse of M. Fradin and arrested the family, who were charging an entrance fee to view the finds. The seizure was the outcome of a formal charge of fraud made by (he Societe Phehistorique which characterized the Glozel finds as a vast hoax, lending discredit to French scientific, work. Emile Fradin stated that someone placed newly engraved pebbles, which the police seized, in the wall of the cattleshed in order to discredit the Glozel finds.