Glozel
Glozel is a hamlet in the town of Ferrieres -sur- Sichon in Allier, in the Auvergne region of central France. Glozel is located about 17 km from Vichy.
The best known is Glozel as archeological site on the 1924-1930 over 3000 artifacts were discovered, including clay tablets, sculptures and vases, some of which are described with symbols and letters.
The finds have been dated very different, assessed as neolithic, stone age or medieval and have long been the subject of heated debates among French archaeologists. Originally suspected many experts behind the discovery a fake, but advanced dating methods later confirmed the age of the finds.
Discovery and excavation
The artifacts were discovered on March 1, 1924 by the 17 -year-old Emile Fradin ( born August 8, 1906 † 10 February 2010 at the age of 103 years ) and his grandfather Claude Fradin. While they were plowing their field with a plow cattle, the cow got stuck in a hole. At Get rid of the cow Fradins discovered an underground chamber lying. This had walls made of clay bricks and 16 clay floor tiles and contained human bones and ceramic fragments.
Adrienne Picandet, a local teacher, visited the farm of the same Fradins in March, and then continued the Minister of Education of the discovery in knowledge. Another teacher, Benoit Clément, was sent on 9 July by the Société d' Emulation du Bourbonnais to win a first inspection. He later returned with a man named Viple, with whom he abtrug the remaining walls of the chamber and took for further analysis. Later Viple wrote a letter to Émile Fradin, in which he reference as Gallo- Roman designated and eingrenzte dating to 100-400 AD.
In the January issue of the Bulletin de la Société d' Emulation du Bourbonnais the finds were mentioned, whereupon the Hobbyarchäolige and based in Vichy doctor Antonin Morlet began to interested in it. Morlet visited the yard on April 26 and offered the Fradins 200 francs to the excavation rights. The excavation began on 24 May 1925 it was discovered clay tablets, statuettes, bones, flints and stones with engravings. Morlet wrote under the Coautorschaft by Émile Fradin a report entitled Nouvelle station Néolithique, in which he described the locality as neolithic. The report was published in September 1925.
Two other graves were discovered in 1927. Then in April 1928 further excavations were made. After 1941 a new law forbade private excavations and the site was not touched until 1983. Then it was opened by the Ministry of Culture again. A full scientific report was not published until today, but a 13-page summary of previous findings and results appeared in 1995., The authors of this summary estimate the overall findings as a medieval (between coarse dating from 500 to 1500 AD ), where they assume that possibly counterfeit, and objects could be earlier periods under.
Since 1999, one of René Germain organized, annual colloquium on Glozel in Vichy is held.
Controversy Glozel
French archaeologists were Morlet 's report of 1925 compared to very negative, because he came from a hobby archaeologist and a peasant boy. Morlet invited in 1926, a number of archaeologists to visit the locality, including Salomon Reinach, the curator of the National Museum of Saint- Germain -en- Laye, who spent three days with excavations. Reinach then confirmed the authenticity of the source in a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Also the prehistorians Henri Breuil was impressed after he had made his own excavations, but later he wrote then that " everything is fake, except the Steinzeugtongefäßen. "
At the meeting of the International Institute of Anthropology in Amsterdam, which took place in September 1927 Glozel became the subject of heated controversy. A commission was appointed to carry out further inquiries. They met on 5 November 1927 in Glozel and led for three days by excavations. Although onlookers later reported that numerous findings had been made by the archaeologists, the Commission indicated in its report everything with the exception of some flints and axes as a forgery. René Dussaud the curator of the Louvre and the famous epigraphs, Émile Fradin accused of forgery. On January 8, 1928 Fradin sued him for libel.
Felix Regnault, President of the French Prehistoric Society, Glozel visited on 24 February 1928. Having visited the small museum in the short reference, he filed a complaint for fraud. The day after he appeared in conduct of the police, which the museum searched on his instruction, glass display cases destroyed and artifacts confiscated. On February 28, the charges against Dussaud to the upcoming display Regnault was postponed.
A new group convened by Morlet neutral archaeologists, the so-called " Comité des études " began to dig again. Between 12 and 14 April 1928, she found more artifacts and confirmed the authenticity of the site, which they rated as neolithic.
Gaston -Edmond Bayle, head of the criminal records office in Paris analyzed the seized artifacts. His report refers to them as fakes, and on June 4, 1929 Émile Fradin of fraud was indicted. The sentiment against Fradin was finally lifted on appeal in April 1931. The defamation suit against Dussaud was negotiated in March of the following year, he was convicted of libel.
Dating of artifacts
In Glozel glass was found spectroscopically dated in the 1920s. The dating was repeated in the 1990s in the Slowpoke reactor at the University of Toronto by neutron activation analysis. Both analyzes show the formation period of the glass in the Middle Ages. Alice and Sam Gerard who along with Robert Liris 1995, two leg bones found in the grave II dated with 14C measurements at the University of Arizona, these date from the 13th century.
The 1974 made Thermolumineszenzdatierung of pottery from Glozel confirmed that the vessels had not been recently manufactured. From 1979, it began due to 39 TL dating of 27 artifacts to classify the findings into three groups: the first between 300 BC and 300 (Celtic and Gallo- Roman ), the second medieval ( vA around the 13th century ) and the third current. TL datings were carried out in 1983 in which Oxford, the artifacts assign the period between the 4th century and the medieval period.
14C dating of bone fragments determine their age between the 13th and 20th centuries. Three 14C datings were performed in Oxford in 1984, a piece of coal dating to the 11th to 13th centuries and a piece of ivory ring to the 15th century. A human femur has been dated to the 5th century.
The clay tablets of Glozel
About 100 clay tablets with inscriptions were found in Glozel total. The inscriptions have an average of six to seven lines, are usually described one-sided and have not been fully deciphered until today.
The symbols on the panels are reminiscent of the Phoenician alphabet, but have not yet been deciphered. There have been numerous claims of decipherment, including the identification of the language of the inscriptions as Basque, Chaldean, Eteokretisch, Turkish, Iberian, Latin, Berber, Ligurian, Phoenician and Hebrew.
Some archaeologists dated the rune stones to a fantastic Age ( about 8000 BC). The time information was then presented by experts such as Lois Capitan as a clumsy forgery, there could have existed no meaningful civilization around 8000 BC. The arrangement of characters also will not let us to conclude that this is in fact constituted a verschriftlichte language, as no word or sentence structures are recognizable. Although attempts have been made, at which were astronomical or ritual texts, but the results to date are highly controversial. The controversy over the dating and even to the authenticity of the rune stones have continued over the years. When the Second World War broke out, the discussion ended abruptly and the stones fell into oblivion. Only towards the end of the 70s of the 20th century, the debate about the authenticity of the runes came on again. The mittlererweile forgeschrittenere technology made it possible for the age of the inscribed clay tablets to determine exactly. The oldest find ( a bone plate ), has an age of about 17,000 years, other specimens are about 15,000 years old. The clay tablets, however, emerged much later (from about 600 BC).
In 1982, Hans -Rudolf Hitz ago that the inscriptions were of Celtic origin and dated to between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century. He counted 25 different characters with about 60 variations and ligatures. Hitz hypothesis is that the used alphabet is the lepontische version of the Etruscan writing, as some words from this language are known. Examples: Setu ( Lepontic Setu pokios ) Attec ( Lepontic Ati Atecua ) Uenit ( Lepontic Uenia ) Tepu ( Lepontic Atepu ). Hitz even claimed the discovery of a toponym for Glozel, namely nemu chlausei "at the sacred place of Glozel " ( he compares nemu the Celtic nemeton ). However, give the rune stones of Glozel due to their random arrangement acting scientists puzzle even today.