Glozel (46°02′N 3°36′E) is a hamlet in central France, part of the commune of Ferrières-sur-Sichon, Mayet de Montagne, Allier, some 17 km from Vichy. The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. ... Allier is a département in south-central France named after the Allier River. ... The Opera in Vichy. ...

From 1924 to 1930, a total of some 3,000 artifacts, variously dated to Neolithic, Iron Age and Medieval times were unearthed, including clay tablets, sculptures and vases, some of them inscribed with letters. 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... An array of Neolithic artefacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools Excavated dwellings at Skara Brae Scotland. ... Iron Age Axe found on Gotland This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age, for the mythological Iron Age see Iron Age (mythology). ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...

The finds initiated a series of claims and counterclaims among French archaeologists. Some regarded the items as authentic, while others concluded the items were hoaxes. A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ...

Discovery and Excavation

The initial discovery was made by Émile Fradin, at the time aged 17, and his grandfather Claude Fradin, on 1 March 1924. Émile was holding the handles of a plow when one of the cows pulling it stuck her foot in a cavity. Freeing the cow, the Fradins uncovered a cavity with walls of clay bricks and 16 clay floor tiles, containing human bones and ceramic fragments.

Adrienne Picandet, a local teacher, after visiting the Fradins' farm in March informed the Minister of Education. On July 9, another teacher, Benoit Clément, visited the Fradins representing the Societé d'Emulation du Bourbonnais, later returning with a man called Viple. Clément and Viple used pickaxes to break down the remaining walls, which they took away with them. Later, Émile Fradin received a letter by Viple identifying the site as Gallo-Roman. The January issue of the Bulletin de la Societé d'Emulation du Bourbonnais mentioned the finds, alerting Antonin Morlet, a Vichy physician and amateur archaeologist. Morlet visited the farm on 26 April, offering 200 francs to be allowed to complete the excavation. Morlet began his excavations on 24 May, 1925, discovering tablets, idols and bone and flint tools and engraved stones. Morlet identified the site as Neolithic in a report entitled Nouvelle Station Néolithique published in September 1925, Émile Fradin as co-author. Two other tombs were uncovered in 1927. More excavations were performed in April 1928. After 1942, a new law outlawed private excavations, and the site remained untouched until the Ministry of Culture in 1983 re-opened excavations. The full report was never published, but a 13 page summary appeared in 1995. The authors suggest that the site is medieval, possibly containing some Iron Age objects, but was likely enriched by forgeries. Since 1999, a group of scholars organized by René Germain is holding a yearly colloque about Glozel in Vichy. 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the year. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Iron Age Axe found on Gotland This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age, for the mythological Iron Age see Iron Age (mythology). ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

Dating

Glass found at Glozel was dated spectrographically in the 1920s, and again in the 1990s at the Slowpoke Reactor at Toronto University by neutron activation analysis. Both analyses place the glass fragments in the medieval period. Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto (U of T), in Toronto, Ontario, is the largest university in Canada and one of the most important scholarly publishers in North America. ... // How Neutron Activation Analysis Works Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) is a nuclear process used for determining certain concentrations of elements in a vast amount of materials. ...

Alice and Sam Gerard together with Robert Liris in 1995 managed to have two bone tubes found in Tomb II C-14 dated at the AMS C-14 laboratory at the University of Arizona, finding a 13th century date. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ...

Thermoluminescence dating of Glozel pottery in 1974 confirmed that the pottery was not produced recently. By 1979, 39 TL dates on 27 artifacts separated the artifacts into three groups: 300 BC and AD 300. (Celtic and Roman Gaul), a medieval period centered on the 13th century, and a recent period. TL datings of 1983 performed in Oxford range from the 4th century to the medieval period. Thermoluminescence (TL) dating is the determination by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments). ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1974 calendar). ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (from Latin Gallia, c. ... Gaul in the Roman Empire Roman Gaul consisted of an area of provincial rule in what would become modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany. ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Carbon-14 datings of bone fragments range from the 13th to the 20th century. Three C-14 analyses performed in Oxford in 1984 dated a piece of charcoal to the 11th to 13th century, and a fragment of an ivory ring to the 15th century. A human femur was dated to the 5th century. Carbon-14 is the radioactive isotope of carbon discovered February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... If you were looking for an organization, see FEMA. The femur or thigh bone is the longest, most voluminous and strongest bone of the human body. ...

Glozel tablets

Some 100 ceramic tablets bearing inscriptions are among the artefacts found at Glozel. The inscriptions are on average on six or seven lines, mostly on a single side, although some specimens are inscribed on both faces. The tablet inscriptions are reminiscent of the Phoenician alphabet. There were numerous claims of decipherment, including identification of the language of the inscriptions as Basque, Chaldean, Eteocretan, Hebrew, Iberian, Latin, Berber, Ligurian, Phoenician and Turkic [1] [2] [3]. The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... Basque (in Basque: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. ... Urartian is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in Northeast Anatolia (present Turkey), in the region of Lake Van. ... The Eteocretan (i. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel with the West Bank, the United States, and Jewish communities around the world. ... The Iberian language describes a linguistic group identified with the Iberian civilization (7th century BC – 1st century BC), formed in the eastern and south-eastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Liguri. ... Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Phoenicia /Canaan (now Lebanon, coastal Syria and northern Israel ). Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup, closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ...

Hans-Rudolf Hitz (1982) suggests a Celtic reading and dates the inscriptions to between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD, suggesting a Gaulish dialect. He counts 25 signs, augmented by some 60 variations and ligatures. Hitz hypothizes that the alphabet was influenced by the Lepontic alphabet of Lugano, itself descended from the Etruscan alphabet, reading some Lepontic proper names like Setu (Lepontic Setu-pokios), Attec (Lepontic Ati, Atecua), Uenit (Lepontic Uenia), Tepu (Lepontic Atepu). Hitz even claims discovery of the toponym Glozel itself, as nemu chlausei "in the sacred place of Glozel" (comparing nemu to Gaulish nemeton). 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A Celtic cross. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) // Events Teotihuacán, Mexico begun The first two Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome over dominance in western Mediterranean Rome conquers Spain Gaulish migration to Macedon, Thrace and Galatia 282-226: Colossus of Rhodes 281 BC Antiochus I Soter, on the assassination... (Redirected from 1st century AD) (1st century BC - 1st century - 2nd century - other centuries) The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 to 99. ... Gaulish is name given to the now-extinct Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Romans, the Franks and the British Celts invaded. ... Lepontic is an extinct Celtic language that was once spoken in Northern Italy between 700 BCE and 400 BCE. The language is only known from a few inscriptions discovered that were written in a variety of the Northern Italic alphabet, which was related to the Old Italic alphabet. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South...

Glozel affair

French archaeological academia was dismissive of Morlet's 1925 report, published by an amateur and a peasant boy. Morlet invited a number of archaeologists to visit the site during 1926, including Salomon Reinach, curator of the National Museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, who spent three days excavating. Reinach confirmed the authenticity of the site in a communication to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. Similalry, famous archaeologist Abbé Breuil excavated with Morlet and was impressed with the site, but on 2 October, Breuil wrote that "everything is false except the stoneware pottery." 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Salomon Reinach (August 29, 1858 - 1932) was a French archaeologist. ... Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. ... The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society founded in 1663 and concerned with the humanities. ... Henri Breuil (February 28, 1877 - August 14, 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil was a French archaeologist. ...

At the meeting of the International Institute of Anthropology in Amsterdam, held in September 1927, Glozel was the subject of heated controversy. A commission was appointed for further investigation, arriving at Glozel on 5 November 1927. During their three day excavation campaign, the archaeologists were observed by spectators, who were by now flocking to the site, as finding various artefacts, but in their report of December 1927, the commission declared everything at Glozel with the exception of a few pieces of flint axes and stone ware as a fake. René Dussaud, curator at the Louvre and famous epigrapher, also accused Émile Fradin of forgery. On 10 January 1927, Fradin filed suit for defamation against Dussaud. I.M. Peis Louvre Pyramid: the entrance to the galleries lies below the glass pyramid The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre, pronounced in French) in Paris, France, is one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. ...

The president of the French Prehistoric Society Felix Regnault visited Glozel on 24 February, and after briefly visiting the small museum filed a complaint of fraud. The police under the direction of Regnault on the next day searched the museum, destroyed glass display cases and confiscated three cases of artifacts. On February 28th the suit against Dussaud was postponed due to Regnault's pending indictment against Fradin.

A new group of neutral archaeologists, called the Committee of Studies, appointed by scholars who were uncomfortable with these happenings, excavated from 12 to 14 April 1928. They found more artifacts and in their report asserted the authenticity of the site, which they identified as Neolithic.

Gaston-Edmond Bayle, chief of the Criminal Records Office in Paris analyzed the confiscated artifacts and in a report identified them as recent forgeries, and on 4 June 1929, Émile Fradin was indicted for fraud on the basis of Bayle's report, but the verdict was reverted by an appeal court in April 1931. The defamation charge against Dussaud came to trial in March 1932, and Dussaut was found guilty of defamation. 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ...

Literature

• André Cherpillod, Glozel et l'écriture préhistorique (1991), ISBN 2906134155
• Émile Fradin, Glozel et ma vie (Les Énigmes de l'univers), R. Laffont (1979), ISBN 2221002849
• Alice Gerard, Glozel : Bones of Contention (2005), ISBN 0595670679
• Alice Gerard, Glozel (2005) ASIN B0007QAAM0
• Hans-Rudolf Hitz, Als man noch protokeltisch sprach: Versuch einer Entzifferung der Inschriften von Glozel, Juris (1982), ISBN 3260049142
• Marie Labarrère-Delorme, La Colombe de Glozel: Propositions pour une lecture des inscriptions de Glozel, M. Labarrère-Delorme (1992) ISBN 2950463215
• Nicole Torchet , L'Affaire de Glozel, Copernic (1978), ISBN 2859840214

External links

• Glozel museum website (in French)
• glozel.net (Alice Gerard)
  • inscription corpus (PDF)
• Glozel
• Fortean Times article

• Glozel and Lussac les Châteuax (Journal Infinito)