Unearthing the secret history of fake fossils

A remarkable hoax involving fake fossils was carried out in Wurtzburg, Germany in the early 18th century. The story still has the power to instruct and amuse and is often recounted in natural history circles.

Today we understand what fossils are and how they were formed, but this matter was far from settled in those days. Many geologists thought that fossils were bones of creatures buried in ancient floods and turned to stone. Others thought fossils were rocks shaped by inorganic forces into forms that resembled animals. Those shapes that didn't resemble any living animals were dismissed as oddities or whimsical carvings fashioned by God.

Dr Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer was a professor of medicine in Wurtzburg. He studied fossils and concluded that while some might be dead animals, most were fashioned by God for His own pleasure or were doodles of creatures He might create. Beringer was well known for his lectures on this subject.

Unfortunately for Beringer, many of his colleagues considered him to be insufferably arrogant, pompous and dogmatic. Two of his enemies conspired to hoax Beringer with a scheme designed to expose him as a fool. The two hoaxers were J Ignatz Roderick, Professor of Geography, Algebra and Analysis at the University of Wurtzburg and Georg von Eckart, Privy Councillor and Librarian to the Court and to the University.

Beringer employed several young men to dig his stones (fossils) from a particular hill. Roderick and Eckart carved special stones and bribed one of the young men to plant them in the hill. Beringer was delighted when these stones were "discovered". They were finer than anything he had seen before. He studied them intensely and decided they represented the artwork of the Creator. He published a book of his findings and illustrated it with expensive plates of the stones.

The fossils depicted a wide range of objects, all in 3-D relief on flattened surfaces. Most depicted complete organisms showing soft anatomy and behaviour that could not be preserved in conventional fossils: spiders with their webs, birds with eyes and beaks, bees feeding on nectar, frogs copulating, and so on.

Other stones showed comets, or the sun with human face and rays emanating outwards around 360 degrees, or Hebrew letters spelling out Jehovah - the name of God. One can easily picture Roderick slapping his thigh with mirth as he carved these outlandish images.

Although Beringer saw that these stones differed from conventional fossils, he trusted their authenticity and refused to believe they had been carved by humans. However, some time after the publication of his book he realised that he had been duped. The story goes that he saw the light when a stone was unearthed bearing his own name in Hebrew letters - he couldn't believe that God was this playful. However, there is no evidence that this story is true.

Beringer must have been mortified when he discovered the hoax. He spent a fortune trying to buy up all copies of his book. He died in 1740 and was spared having to witness the publication of a second edition of his book in 1767, which was in great demand as a funny illustration of an unsuspecting man who became a dupe of excessive credulity.

The hoaxers paid a heavy price for their fun. To "save his honour" Beringer took Roderick and Eckart to court. The hoaxers testified that they wanted to discredit Beringer because "he was so arrogant, and despised us all". The trial ruined the reputations of Roderick and Eckart. Roderick was forced to leave Wurtzburg and died soon after. Eckart lost his job and his access to the library and archives.

The story of Beringer is usually told as an example of a pompous ass who gored himself on the horns of his own credulity. Stephen Jay Gould argues credibly, in an essay in Natural History, April 1998, that this is unfair to Beringer.

The fake stones were constructed artfully enough to fool him even though he was an experienced examiner of fossils. The picture they presented supported his hypothesis and the temptation to publish and become famous proved irresistible. Granted, he should have seen through the hoax in time to abort publication of the book, but, what looks obvious to us with the benefit of current knowledge and the privilege of hindsight, was not nearly such a simple matter for Beringer.

Gould compares Beringer's story to the Piltdown Man forgery that fooled many of the best scientists in the world for generations. The skull was "found" at Piltdown, England, in 1912 and on examination was interpreted to be that of an advanced human-like ancestor to modern humans.

It was a fake and today even an amateur in vertebrate anatomy can tell this without difficulty. However, what is obvious now wasn't at all obvious then. People didn't suspect fakery, and the fraud wasn't exposed until 1953.

The Beringer affair was an academic squabble that spilled onto the public stage and the public is always interested to know the details of the dons' quarrels. These details are usually neither interesting nor edifying but the Beringer story has an easily understood human dimension and is both amusing and instructive.

William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and director of microscopy at UCC