Glozel
Encyclopedia
Glozel is a hamlet in central France
, part of the commune of Ferrières-sur-Sichon
, Canton of Le Mayet-de-Montagne, Allier
, some 17 km from Vichy
.
Glozel is probably best known as the place where, from 1924 to 1930, over 3,000 artifacts were discovered, including clay tablets, sculptures and vases, some of which were inscribed with symbols or letters.
Variously dated to Neolithic
, Iron Age
and Medieval times, the finds initiated a series of claims, counterclaims and heated debates among French archaeologists. Initially, many experts argued in favor of a hoax
, but advanced testing from later decades confirmed that many of the Glozel artifacts were most likely of genuine antiquity.
Adrienne Picandet, a local teacher, visited the Fradins' farm in March, and afterwards informed the Minister of Education about the site. On July 9, another teacher, Benoit Clément, visited the Fradins representing the Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais
, later returning with a man called Viple. Clément and Viple used pickaxes to break down the chamber's remaining walls, which they took away with them. Later, Viple wrote to Émile Fradin identifying the site as Gallo-Roman, dating to between about A.D 100-400, and possibly of archeological importance.
The January issue of the Bulletin de la Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais mentioned the finds, intriguing 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, bone and flint tools and engraved stones. Morlet identified the site as Neolithic
in a report entitled Nouvelle Station Néolithique published in September 1925, with Émile Fradin listed as co-author.
Two other tombs were uncovered in 1927. More excavations were performed in April 1928. After 1941, a new law outlawed private excavations, and the site remained untouched until the Ministry of Culture re-opened excavations in 1983. The full report was never published, but a 13-page summary appeared in 1995. The authors suggest that the site is medieval (roughly A.D. 500–1500), possibly containing some earlier Iron Age
objects, but was likely enriched by forgeries.
Since 1999, a group of scholars organized by René Germain has held an annual colloquium
about Glozel in Vichy.
, 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. Similarly, 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."
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 artifacts, 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 were as a fake. René Dussaud
, curator at the Louvre
and famous epigrapher, also accused Émile Fradin of forgery. On 8 January 1928, Fradin filed suit for defamation against Dussaud.
Felix Regnault, the president of the French Prehistoric Society, visited Glozel on 24 February 1928. After briefly visiting the site's small museum, he filed a complaint of fraud. On 25 February, the police, under the direction of Regnault, 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, was appointed by scholars who were uncomfortable with the ongoing controversy. Excavating 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. Bayle's report identified the artifacts as recent forgeries, and on 4 June 1929, Émile Fradin was indicted for fraud on the basis of Bayle's report. The verdict against Fradin was reverted by an appeal court in April 1931. The defamation charge against Dussaud came to trial in March 1932, and Dussaud was found guilty of defamation.
by neutron activation analysis
. Both analyses place the glass fragments in the medieval period. 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.
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: the first between 300 BC and 300 AD (Celtic and Roman Gaul
), the second medieval, centered on the 13th century, and the third recent. TL datings of 1983 performed in Oxford range from the 4th century to the medieval period.
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.
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 symbols on the tablets are reminiscent of the Phoenician alphabet
, but they have not been conclusively deciphered. There were numerous claims of decypherment, including identification of the language of the inscriptions as Basque
, Chaldean
, Eteocretan
, Hebrew
, Iberian
, Latin
, Berber
, Ligurian, Phoenician
and Turkic
.
In 1982, Hans-Rudolf Hitz suggested a Celt
ic origin for the inscriptions, and dated 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 hypothesizes 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).
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, part of the commune of Ferrières-sur-Sichon
Ferrières-sur-Sichon
Ferrières-sur-Sichon is a commune in the Allier department in central France.-Population:-References:*...
, Canton of Le Mayet-de-Montagne, Allier
Allier
Allier is a department in central France named after the river Allier.- History :Allier is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Auvergne and Bourbonnais.In 1940, the government of Marshal...
, some 17 km from Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
.
Glozel is probably best known as the place where, from 1924 to 1930, over 3,000 artifacts were discovered, including clay tablets, sculptures and vases, some of which were inscribed with symbols or letters.
Variously dated to Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
, Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
and Medieval times, the finds initiated a series of claims, counterclaims and heated debates among French archaeologists. Initially, many experts argued in favor of a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
, but advanced testing from later decades confirmed that many of the Glozel artifacts were most likely of genuine antiquity.
Discovery and excavation
The initial discovery was made on 1 March 1924 by 17-year old Émile Fradin (born August 8, 1906, died February 10, 2010 age 103 ) and his grandfather Claude Fradin. Émile was guiding a cow-drawn plow when its foot became stuck in a cavity. Freeing the cow, the Fradins uncovered an underground chamber, with walls of clay bricks and 16 clay floor tiles, containing human bones and ceramic fragments.Adrienne Picandet, a local teacher, visited the Fradins' farm in March, and afterwards informed the Minister of Education about the site. On July 9, another teacher, Benoit Clément, visited the Fradins representing the Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais
Société d'émulation
Société d'émulation is a name given from the 18th century onwards to some learned societies of men in France and Wallonia wishing to study together in the arts, science and letters and often to publish the results of their reflections and their works in a bulletin, review or Acts. They were also...
, later returning with a man called Viple. Clément and Viple used pickaxes to break down the chamber's remaining walls, which they took away with them. Later, Viple wrote to Émile Fradin identifying the site as Gallo-Roman, dating to between about A.D 100-400, and possibly of archeological importance.
The January issue of the Bulletin de la Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais mentioned the finds, intriguing Antonin Morlet, a Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
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, bone and flint tools and engraved stones. Morlet identified the site as Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
in a report entitled Nouvelle Station Néolithique published in September 1925, with Émile Fradin listed as co-author.
Two other tombs were uncovered in 1927. More excavations were performed in April 1928. After 1941, a new law outlawed private excavations, and the site remained untouched until the Ministry of Culture re-opened excavations in 1983. The full report was never published, but a 13-page summary appeared in 1995. The authors suggest that the site is medieval (roughly A.D. 500–1500), possibly containing some earlier Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
objects, but was likely enriched by forgeries.
Since 1999, a group of scholars organized by René Germain has held an annual colloquium
Colloquium
Colloquium can refer to:* the Parliament of Scotland, called a "colloquium" in Latin records.* any musical piece celebrating birth or distribution of good news, a hymn...
about Glozel in Vichy.
Glozel affair and controversy
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 ReinachSalomon Reinach
Salomon Reinach was a French archaeologist.The brother of Joseph Reinach, he was born at St Germain-en-Laye and educated at the École normale supérieure before joining the French school at Athens in 1879...
, curator of the National Museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
, who spent three days excavating. Reinach confirmed the authenticity of the site in a communication to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. Similarly, 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."
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 artifacts, 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 were as a fake. René Dussaud
René Dussaud
René Dussaud was a French Orientalist, archaeologist, and epigrapher. Among his major works are studies on the religion of the Hittites, the Hurrians, the Phoenicians and the Syriacs...
, curator at the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
and famous epigrapher, also accused Émile Fradin of forgery. On 8 January 1928, Fradin filed suit for defamation against Dussaud.
Felix Regnault, the president of the French Prehistoric Society, visited Glozel on 24 February 1928. After briefly visiting the site's small museum, he filed a complaint of fraud. On 25 February, the police, under the direction of Regnault, 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, was appointed by scholars who were uncomfortable with the ongoing controversy. Excavating 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. Bayle's report identified the artifacts as recent forgeries, and on 4 June 1929, Émile Fradin was indicted for fraud on the basis of Bayle's report. The verdict against Fradin was reverted by an appeal court in April 1931. The defamation charge against Dussaud came to trial in March 1932, and Dussaud was found guilty of defamation.
Dating the artifacts
Glass found at Glozel was dated spectrographically in the 1920s, and again in the 1990s at the Slowpoke Reactor at the University of TorontoUniversity of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
by neutron activation analysis
Neutron activation analysis
In chemistry, neutron activation analysis is a nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of elements in a vast amount of materials. NAA allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on its nucleus. The method is based on...
. Both analyses place the glass fragments in the medieval period. 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
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, finding a 13th century date.
Thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated or exposed to sunlight...
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: the first between 300 BC and 300 AD (Celtic and Roman Gaul
Roman Gaul
Roman Gaul consisted of an area of provincial rule in the Roman Empire, in modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany. Roman control of the area lasted for less than 500 years....
), the second medieval, centered on the 13th century, and the third recent. TL datings of 1983 performed in Oxford range from the 4th century to the medieval period.
Carbon-14
Carbon-14
Carbon-14, 14C, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with a nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues , to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological...
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
Femur
The femur , or thigh bone, is the most proximal bone of the leg in tetrapod vertebrates capable of walking or jumping, such as most land mammals, birds, many reptiles such as lizards, and amphibians such as frogs. In vertebrates with four legs such as dogs and horses, the femur is found only in...
was dated to the 5th century.
Glozel tablets
Some 100 ceramicCeramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
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 symbols on the tablets are reminiscent of the Phoenician alphabet
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
, but they have not been conclusively deciphered. There were numerous claims of decypherment, including identification of the language of the inscriptions as Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, Chaldean
Urartian language
Urartian, Vannic, and Chaldean are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of...
, Eteocretan
Eteocretan language
The Minoan language was spoken in ancient Crete before it was replaced with the language of the mainland; the relationship between Minoan and Greek is unknown. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages, Minoan must be considered unclassified until a linguistic affiliation can...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Iberian
Iberian language
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Berber
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
, Ligurian, Phoenician
Phoenician languages
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...
and Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
.
In 1982, Hans-Rudolf Hitz suggested a Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic origin for the inscriptions, and dated 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 hypothesizes 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).
Literature
- André Cherpillod, Glozel et l'écriture préhistorique (1991), ISBN 2-906134-15-5
- Émile Fradin, Glozel et ma vie (Les Énigmes de l'univers), R. Laffont (1979), ISBN 2-221-00284-9
- Alice Gerard, Glozel : Bones of Contention (2005), ISBN 0-595-67067-9
- Alice Gerard, Glozel (2005) ASIN B0007QAAM0
- Hans-Rudolf Hitz, Als man noch protokeltisch sprach: Versuch einer Entzifferung der Inschriften von Glozel, Juris (1982), ISBN 3-260-04914-2
- Marie Labarrère-Delorme, La Colombe de Glozel: Propositions pour une lecture des inscriptions de Glozel, M. Labarrère-Delorme (1992) ISBN 2-9504632-1-5
- Nicole Torchet , L'Affaire de Glozel, Copernic (1978), ISBN 2-85984-021-4
- Gigi Sanna, 'Conferenza di Parigi.I documenti oracolari in lingua greca arcaica di Glozel ed il culto di Apollo IEIOS in Delfi'; in Quaderni Oristanesi, 53/54, Aprile 2005.
- Gigi Sanna, 'Da Tzricotu (Sardegna) a Delfi (Grecia) percorrendo Glozel (Francia). I segni del Lossia Cacciatore. Le lettere ambigue di Apollo e l'alfabeto protogreco di Pito.'; S'Alvure ed. Oristano (2007)
External links
- Glozel and Lussac les Châteaux (Journal Infinito)