1
00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:17,480
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,599
Speaker 1: My name is Holly Fry and I am Tracy V. Wilson,

4
00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:23,160
Speaker 1: and today we're going to talk a little bit about

5
00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:29,240
Speaker 1: early fossil study. When when we started on this podcast,

6
00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 1: I was very sad that previous hosts had already talked

7
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 1: about the bone Wars. So I am glad that you

8
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:38,560
Speaker 1: found a different, crazy fossil story for us to talk about.

9
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:41,519
Speaker 1: It is it's one of those things that's often told

10
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:46,720
Speaker 1: in um archaeology studies as sort of a cautionary tale

11
00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:50,479
Speaker 1: to some degree, but it's kind of a fascinating little story,

12
00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:54,400
Speaker 1: and the tale that's often told is not really completely accurate.

13
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,760
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about today is Johann Bringer and

14
00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: he was born Johann Bartolomas Adam Bringer in sixteen sixty seven.

15
00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:07,800
Speaker 1: He was the son of a professor Johann Ludwig Berenger,

16
00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:11,560
Speaker 1: and Berenger was an active scholar. He eventually became the

17
00:01:11,640 --> 00:01:14,840
Speaker 1: chair of natural History at the University of Wurtzburg, and

18
00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:17,679
Speaker 1: he was also chief physician to the Prince Bishop of

19
00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:23,319
Speaker 1: Wurtzburg and the Prince Bishop's patronage enabled Berenger to study

20
00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:28,679
Speaker 1: a hobby subject, which was fossils. But unfortunately Beinger was

21
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,800
Speaker 1: by most accounts rather arrogant and conceded, which kind of

22
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:38,120
Speaker 1: led to the events that ended up unfolding. Right, So,

23
00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:41,320
Speaker 1: there were several theories about the origins of fossils at

24
00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:44,520
Speaker 1: the time. There was the spermatic principle, and that was

25
00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:48,680
Speaker 1: that the results of marine animals mating could escape into

26
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:52,880
Speaker 1: the sea and sometimes evaporate into the atmosphere, fall down

27
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,920
Speaker 1: his rain, and grow new fish in the rock crevices

28
00:01:55,960 --> 00:02:00,120
Speaker 1: where the fertilized eggs fell, which is delightful. Yes. So

29
00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 1: the theory there is that the fish examples that you

30
00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:06,280
Speaker 1: would find in fossils were actual fish that had grown

31
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: in the rock because they had fallen from the sky

32
00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:13,240
Speaker 1: as fertilized eggs. There's the helio memory theory, which is

33
00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:15,880
Speaker 1: that raised from the sun could sort of leave a

34
00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:19,119
Speaker 1: photo imprint onto stones of the things that the light

35
00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:23,280
Speaker 1: had already touched, which is also delightful. It is, and

36
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: it makes me think of photography a little bit in

37
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:28,080
Speaker 1: some ways. It's kind of a fascinating theory to be

38
00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:31,400
Speaker 1: rolling around in the early seventeen hundreds, right, the sun

39
00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,640
Speaker 1: was painting pictures on things. So the next was the

40
00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:37,960
Speaker 1: plastic theory, and that's similar to the spermatic theory, but

41
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:43,280
Speaker 1: with the fossils spontaneously growing inside of rocks. People had

42
00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:46,400
Speaker 1: that same theory about other animals, like living animals too. Yeah,

43
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:50,320
Speaker 1: it was that that was used to confuse me. Generation

44
00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:53,359
Speaker 1: was popular as a as a concept, so goose neck

45
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:59,360
Speaker 1: clams were spawning geese in people's minds at sign So

46
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:02,280
Speaker 1: then there's this signature of God, which was Baringer's favorite,

47
00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:03,960
Speaker 1: and it is mine too, because I want to call

48
00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:06,080
Speaker 1: it the slart of our fast theory if you have

49
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:08,839
Speaker 1: ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that's

50
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:11,960
Speaker 1: that God carved out the images of animals and plants

51
00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:15,000
Speaker 1: into the rocks when he was making the earth. And

52
00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:20,120
Speaker 1: Berenger believed that fossils were quote stones of a peculiar sort,

53
00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:22,880
Speaker 1: hidden by the author of nature for his own pleasure,

54
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,840
Speaker 1: i e. They were made by a higher power, often

55
00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:30,640
Speaker 1: just out of a sense of delight, rather than occurring

56
00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,800
Speaker 1: via these other principles that were in discussion at the time.

57
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:37,320
Speaker 1: And so to set that up, uh, that kind of

58
00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:39,760
Speaker 1: sets up our story, which is, as we said, there

59
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:41,520
Speaker 1: are two versions, so we're going to start with the

60
00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:44,880
Speaker 1: first version, which is kind of the legendary version. And

61
00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:48,560
Speaker 1: according to this version, again, he Berenger was a professor

62
00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:50,640
Speaker 1: at the time, and on Many thirty one of sevent

63
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 1: two or sometimes three, depending on the source, students brought

64
00:03:56,200 --> 00:04:00,200
Speaker 1: him fossil samples UM And there were three samples. One

65
00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:02,960
Speaker 1: had a three dimensional image of the sun and two

66
00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:06,520
Speaker 1: had worms or worm like markings on them, but they

67
00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:09,680
Speaker 1: were raised up. They weren't embedded inside the rock. They

68
00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:13,280
Speaker 1: were on top of it, like extruded. So he was

69
00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:17,800
Speaker 1: immediately excited and puzzled by these stones UM. And between

70
00:04:17,839 --> 00:04:20,800
Speaker 1: the first delivery at the end of May and November

71
00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:25,320
Speaker 1: of seventy five, more sample fossils followed. Yes, the students

72
00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:28,960
Speaker 1: kept bringing him samples, and these contained all kinds of

73
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:33,839
Speaker 1: different images, including heavenly objects like comets with tails and moons,

74
00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:38,560
Speaker 1: and then even things like Hebraic letters. Uh. There were plants,

75
00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:42,279
Speaker 1: there were insects, there were small animals. Things that we

76
00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:45,440
Speaker 1: would probably recognize pretty quickly couldn't happen because a lot

77
00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:47,880
Speaker 1: of them involved soft tissue that would normally be broken

78
00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:52,359
Speaker 1: down in a fossil situation. But Berenger was just super

79
00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:55,440
Speaker 1: excited by all of these discoveries, right, and we as

80
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:58,240
Speaker 1: we've talked about before, he was pretty arrogant and had

81
00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:01,760
Speaker 1: a high opinion of his own knowledge. So this is

82
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:04,080
Speaker 1: sort of a pride go with before the Fall kind

83
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 1: of situation. Yes. So he allegedly received somewhere around two

84
00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: thousand of these stones, which he thought were legitimate things. Yeah,

85
00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:16,279
Speaker 1: So he after studying them over the course of several

86
00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:18,880
Speaker 1: months as they were coming in, he said about writing

87
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 1: what he believed would be a masterpiece in lithography studies,

88
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: which lithography is what fossils were called at the time,

89
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: not the modern meaning, uh, And his seventeen twenty six book,

90
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,839
Speaker 1: The Wurtzburg Lithography was this masterpiece which he thought was

91
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:35,560
Speaker 1: going to be kind of his own scientific opus. And

92
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:38,479
Speaker 1: the book features illustrations of the stones and it discusses

93
00:05:38,520 --> 00:05:42,240
Speaker 1: their possible origins, including the theories that we mentioned at

94
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:46,000
Speaker 1: the beginning of the podcast. While he was working on

95
00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:49,279
Speaker 1: the book, rumors started to circulate that the stones that

96
00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:53,760
Speaker 1: he had were fake contribute created by contemporary hoaxters with

97
00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:57,480
Speaker 1: the goal of seriously embarrassing him because he was pompous

98
00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: and pretentious. And in his book, because these rumors did

99
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,839
Speaker 1: start to circulate before it was complete, he actually includes

100
00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:08,280
Speaker 1: an entire chapter about the hoax rumors. Uh, And I'm

101
00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:10,000
Speaker 1: going to read a passage from it. It's a little

102
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:13,719
Speaker 1: bit lengthy, but stick with us. Uh, he says. Quote. Then,

103
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:16,000
Speaker 1: when I had all but completed my work, I caught

104
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,560
Speaker 1: the rumor circulating throughout the city, especially among prominent and

105
00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:22,640
Speaker 1: learned men, that every one of these stones, which on

106
00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:25,680
Speaker 1: the advice of wise men I proposed to expound in

107
00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:30,080
Speaker 1: a published treatise, were quote recently sculpted by hand, made

108
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:32,680
Speaker 1: to look as though at different periods they had been

109
00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:35,680
Speaker 1: resurrected from a very old burial, and sold to me

110
00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:38,159
Speaker 1: as one indifferent to fraud and caught up in the

111
00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:42,039
Speaker 1: blind greed of curiosity. Further, that I, once deceived, in

112
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:44,880
Speaker 1: my wretched turn, was deluding the world and trying to

113
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:48,360
Speaker 1: sell new hoaxes as genuine antiques to the silent laughter

114
00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:52,000
Speaker 1: of prudent souls. I was shocked beyond words to learn

115
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:54,839
Speaker 1: that the authors of this atrocious calumny were two men,

116
00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:58,280
Speaker 1: perhaps best described as a pair of antagonists whose names

117
00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:00,800
Speaker 1: I have reason to protect at present, men with whom

118
00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:04,919
Speaker 1: I was closely associated in numerous functions, former colleagues in

119
00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:08,480
Speaker 1: the academic society. He went on in this whole chapter

120
00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:12,920
Speaker 1: about the hoax rumors to say, our idiomorphic stones are

121
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,040
Speaker 1: not the handwrought products of recent artistry, as some persons

122
00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:20,720
Speaker 1: have shamelessly pretended and attempted to pedal to the public

123
00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:24,800
Speaker 1: by widespread rumor and gossip. So the two men he

124
00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:29,920
Speaker 1: keeps referring to but not naming are a geographer ja

125
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,400
Speaker 1: Ignatz Roderick, who was a professor of geography, algebra and

126
00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:37,600
Speaker 1: analysis at the University of Wurzburg, and a historian George

127
00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 1: van Eckhard, who was Privy Counselor and librarian to the

128
00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:45,280
Speaker 1: court and the University. Uh. But the hoax rumors, of course,

129
00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:50,200
Speaker 1: were indeed true. So he became so embarrassed, according to

130
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:52,440
Speaker 1: the legend, when he found a stone that had his

131
00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,640
Speaker 1: name carved on it, just as the book was rolling

132
00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,160
Speaker 1: off the presses and into the hands of the public.

133
00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:01,480
Speaker 1: And he was alledg to le so chagrined at this,

134
00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:04,800
Speaker 1: and it, having having been pranked by students, that he

135
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:06,880
Speaker 1: tried to buy up every copy of the book in

136
00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:10,680
Speaker 1: existence and bankrupted himself and died soon after the ordeal

137
00:08:11,080 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 1: in misery and destitution. So that's the sort of legendary

138
00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:17,680
Speaker 1: version of the story. Yes, that's the extremely cautionary tale

139
00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:21,000
Speaker 1: of a fossil hoax, and the real story does have

140
00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,680
Speaker 1: some seeds of truth in that version, but there are

141
00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:28,280
Speaker 1: some wide swings into the realm of falsehood as well.

142
00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:32,040
Speaker 1: The dates for the stones being presented to Barringer and

143
00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:34,880
Speaker 1: the publication of his book R and D correct, but

144
00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:37,280
Speaker 1: the mock nations of the hoax and the manner in

145
00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:40,160
Speaker 1: which it was revealed and what happened post discovery are

146
00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:43,440
Speaker 1: quite different, and the real story was actually revealed in

147
00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:46,719
Speaker 1: court documents and transcripts that were found in the Votzburg

148
00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:51,679
Speaker 1: State Archives. Dr Heinrich Kirchner is recognized as the person

149
00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:56,760
Speaker 1: who discovered these items in although Melvin E. Yawn and

150
00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:00,880
Speaker 1: Daniel J. Wolfe, who produced the Annate did and translated

151
00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:04,360
Speaker 1: work of Berenger's book, are the people that are cited

152
00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:08,839
Speaker 1: with doing so. More often, Yawn and wolf themselves cite

153
00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 1: Kirshner's work and the story that's told in the transcripts

154
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,240
Speaker 1: is really one of academic envy. It's kind of just

155
00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:20,520
Speaker 1: a drama that's playing out among colleagues that are just

156
00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:22,920
Speaker 1: kind of have vendetta's against one another and have a

157
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:27,000
Speaker 1: jealousy at the heart of their relationship. Uh. Berenger did

158
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: take students with him to dig for fossils, and there

159
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,440
Speaker 1: were three in particular that were involved in this particular episode.

160
00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:38,360
Speaker 1: One was seventeen year old Christian Zonger and two brothers,

161
00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: Nicholas who was eighteen and Valentine who was fourteen Hayne.

162
00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:45,679
Speaker 1: It turns out that the prank was not something that

163
00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:48,600
Speaker 1: they thought of themselves. It was a plan on the

164
00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:52,400
Speaker 1: parts of Jay Ignatz, Roderick, and George vont Eckhart to

165
00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:58,360
Speaker 1: use Berenger's own obstinates against him. Roderick and Eckhart had

166
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,520
Speaker 1: apparently hired zong to polish stones for them that Roderick

167
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 1: had carved and sort of aged them a little bit,

168
00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:08,640
Speaker 1: and then Zonga would plant them in dig sites, but

169
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,480
Speaker 1: some were also handed off to a stone cutter's assistant

170
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:15,720
Speaker 1: to sell to Baringer as though he had accidentally found

171
00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:17,559
Speaker 1: them at sites, or as though he had come into

172
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:21,200
Speaker 1: possession of them. Kind of to support the idea that

173
00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:24,160
Speaker 1: it was natural by having these things come from multiple

174
00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:28,400
Speaker 1: sources instead of one stream of supply, which might look suspicious. Right.

175
00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:30,760
Speaker 1: And part of the reason that he was convinced that

176
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:33,640
Speaker 1: these fossil samples were the work of God was the

177
00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:37,680
Speaker 1: inclusion on some of the stones of language that put

178
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:42,800
Speaker 1: them outside the natural imprint theory. Right. While animals and

179
00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: plants happen in nature, letters don't. So that's part of

180
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:49,280
Speaker 1: why Bringer, who was already a little predisposed to think

181
00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:53,920
Speaker 1: that these were divine creations, that just supported that theory

182
00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,600
Speaker 1: as far as he was concerned, rather than dismissing the

183
00:10:57,760 --> 00:10:59,920
Speaker 1: validity of the fossils as some people might have a

184
00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:04,360
Speaker 1: roached them right, So, because the samples substantiated his theories

185
00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:08,160
Speaker 1: of fossils, of where fossils came from, as cognitive bias

186
00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,520
Speaker 1: kind of led him down the path of words mean

187
00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:13,800
Speaker 1: they're real instead of words mean they're fake. Yea, So

188
00:11:13,880 --> 00:11:16,679
Speaker 1: he fell right into the trap set by his fellow academics,

189
00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:20,160
Speaker 1: and as Berenger sample set grew and he started working

190
00:11:20,160 --> 00:11:24,120
Speaker 1: on his book in earnest Roderick and Eckar apparently began

191
00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:26,760
Speaker 1: circulating the hoax rumor, because they were afraid that if

192
00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:30,679
Speaker 1: Berenger published the work without the hoax being revealed, they

193
00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:33,080
Speaker 1: could somehow be connected to the findings and would be

194
00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,560
Speaker 1: ruined along with their colleague. They were starting to think

195
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:39,240
Speaker 1: that if he went ahead and published it, the entire

196
00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,840
Speaker 1: university would kind of be embarrassed, and they would be embarrassed,

197
00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:46,920
Speaker 1: and whether or not they were implicated as hoaxters, it

198
00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:48,880
Speaker 1: could be just a really bad scene. So they didn't

199
00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:51,640
Speaker 1: want him to publish the book. Now it was partially

200
00:11:51,679 --> 00:11:56,719
Speaker 1: covering their own behind At this point. There's some dispute

201
00:11:56,760 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 1: as to how he was finally convinced that this was

202
00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:02,199
Speaker 1: a hope. It is possible that he found a rock

203
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:04,719
Speaker 1: with his name on it, but no such rock has

204
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:08,600
Speaker 1: ever been recovered, and some accounts suggests that Roderick and

205
00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:12,199
Speaker 1: Eckhart had finally thought that things had gone too far

206
00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:14,880
Speaker 1: and that they outright told Berenger that the stones were fakes,

207
00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't believe their confession because he was so

208
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,840
Speaker 1: convinced at that point. There's also a theory that the

209
00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:24,360
Speaker 1: church bishop was involved in convincing him of the truth.

210
00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 1: This is a part of the story that hasn't ever

211
00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:29,400
Speaker 1: really been clear, and it's not referenced in the court

212
00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,679
Speaker 1: proceedings that we have to document it. Uh. And after

213
00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:37,040
Speaker 1: the fraud was exposed though, however, he was convinced, Berenger

214
00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: took action, and on April thirteenth of seventeen twenty six,

215
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:43,760
Speaker 1: there was a hearing at the Votzburg Cathedral chapter accusing

216
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:47,160
Speaker 1: Roderick and Eckhart of trying to doup Berenger. So unlike

217
00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:50,080
Speaker 1: the legend story where he just is ashamed and tries

218
00:12:50,120 --> 00:12:54,400
Speaker 1: to hide the whole thing, he actually is pretty open

219
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:57,640
Speaker 1: about trying to pursue his hoaxters and bring them to justice.

220
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:02,440
Speaker 1: Municipal trials followed all this on April fifteenth and June

221
00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:06,559
Speaker 1: eleventh of seventy six. UH. The young diggers that were

222
00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:09,760
Speaker 1: involved were questioned about their involvement, and if you read

223
00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:13,280
Speaker 1: the Yn and Wolf translation and annotation of Barranger's book,

224
00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:16,040
Speaker 1: the hearings are included in the appendices, and all of

225
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:20,080
Speaker 1: the specific questions that they asked the kids are in there,

226
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:22,000
Speaker 1: which we won't go through because it really is kind

227
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:25,280
Speaker 1: of a long arduous Have you ever carved a thing?

228
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:27,080
Speaker 1: Do you know how to Carve. I mean, they're really

229
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:29,320
Speaker 1: specific questions and they go on for quite a while,

230
00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:33,280
Speaker 1: but the trial papers begin and end rather abruptly. We've

231
00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:36,040
Speaker 1: talked about other trials on the podcast, and there's often

232
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:38,199
Speaker 1: like we get the opening arguments and the discussion and

233
00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:40,960
Speaker 1: the lead in this kind of just starts with questions

234
00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:46,280
Speaker 1: to the kids and ends after the June eleventh trial,

235
00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:50,240
Speaker 1: which was also questions. It doesn't really get to what

236
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:54,880
Speaker 1: happened like in deliberation and discussion. Uh, it just kind

237
00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:58,560
Speaker 1: of includes the questions and the answers. Roderick tried to

238
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:01,400
Speaker 1: shift the blame to the boys Barringer had hired to

239
00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,880
Speaker 1: help him with his digs, and the Haynes really appeared

240
00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,319
Speaker 1: to be innocent in the whole thing. There was apparently

241
00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 1: a bribe that was offered to Zanger also to blame

242
00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:14,760
Speaker 1: the hang the Hayne brothers, but Zanger refused to take it. Yeah,

243
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,439
Speaker 1: so it pretty quickly became a parent that Roderick and

244
00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:20,400
Speaker 1: Eckhart were in fact guilty, and they were disgraced when

245
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:23,080
Speaker 1: that became obvious. So the very thing they had hoped

246
00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:26,560
Speaker 1: to avoid by pointing out the hoax and starting the

247
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,840
Speaker 1: hoax rumors came to fruition in their trial. So Zonger

248
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,280
Speaker 1: was implicated, but it doesn't appear that any real punishment

249
00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: came to him because he didn't know that they were

250
00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:39,840
Speaker 1: faking these stones. But he did ask the Commission for

251
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:43,440
Speaker 1: assistance in collecting eight days worth of wages that Roderick

252
00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:45,960
Speaker 1: owed him for polishing stones, which I just thought was

253
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,440
Speaker 1: sort of funny. But in the midst of all of this,

254
00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:51,160
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, they were faking, and he still owes

255
00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:55,080
Speaker 1: me money for this fraud. I loved it. So what

256
00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:58,040
Speaker 1: was the motivation for all of this? It's that the

257
00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:02,080
Speaker 1: antagonists wanted to rule and Berenger because quote, he was

258
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:05,000
Speaker 1: so arrogant and despised them all. Yeah, it was just

259
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:09,120
Speaker 1: as simple as that. I have seen some kind of

260
00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:13,640
Speaker 1: less um dependable sources that suggested that there may or

261
00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:19,880
Speaker 1: may not have been a love affair involved between Um

262
00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:23,880
Speaker 1: one of the other academics, and someone that was connected

263
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:26,440
Speaker 1: to Berenger, but I never had any verification of that.

264
00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:29,960
Speaker 1: It really does in most articles and discussions of it

265
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:31,520
Speaker 1: kind of come down to you. They just thought he

266
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 1: was an arrogant jerk, right, and they just wanted to

267
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:36,880
Speaker 1: put him in his place. Let's show that jerk face

268
00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:40,560
Speaker 1: with our fake fossils. Yeah. And while tales of Barringer's

269
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,200
Speaker 1: shame and demise completely colored the apocryphal story, as you said,

270
00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:46,320
Speaker 1: it's kind of a cautionary tale of like, you know,

271
00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:49,600
Speaker 1: don't fall for things that you just want to believe,

272
00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 1: because you'll end up poor and embarrassed and and die

273
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 1: and early death because of your shame. He actually emerged

274
00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:59,000
Speaker 1: from the hoax ordeal pretty well in his time, and

275
00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:00,560
Speaker 1: he went on to write two more books that were

276
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:04,440
Speaker 1: not about fossils. Uh. So he really came out pretty

277
00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:07,840
Speaker 1: well in the whole deal. So. Eckhart, on the other hand,

278
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,480
Speaker 1: died four years after the trial, and he had actually

279
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:12,720
Speaker 1: been working on a history of the Duchy of Votzberg

280
00:16:12,800 --> 00:16:15,680
Speaker 1: for many years, but after this all happened, he was

281
00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:18,960
Speaker 1: denied access to the library archives. Uh, and he never

282
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 1: got to finish that work. Roderick left Wurtzburg in shame.

283
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,440
Speaker 1: Berenger died in seventeen forty, which was fourteen years after

284
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:30,160
Speaker 1: the hoax trial. And even though the remainder of his

285
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:32,600
Speaker 1: life seems to have gone pretty well, he has not

286
00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:36,080
Speaker 1: been treated terribly well by history. He's become kind of

287
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:41,640
Speaker 1: a symbol of gullibility and um the foolishness of cognitive bias.

288
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:45,560
Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty seven, which was twenty seven years after

289
00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:48,840
Speaker 1: his death and forty one years after the original publication

290
00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:54,760
Speaker 1: and trial, bereng Jer's Wurtzburg Lithography was republished and forty

291
00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:58,080
Speaker 1: four hundred thirty four of Berenger stones, which came to

292
00:16:58,120 --> 00:17:01,560
Speaker 1: be known as Yugensteina, which literally really means live stones

293
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,520
Speaker 1: or lying stones, actually survive. There were four d and

294
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:08,560
Speaker 1: ninety four depicted in the book, UH, and many of

295
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:12,040
Speaker 1: the collection that remains are at the University Museum at Oxford.

296
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:15,439
Speaker 1: Berenger claimed that he had received more than two thousand,

297
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:18,320
Speaker 1: but it's possible that that's a bit of an inflated number,

298
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:22,080
Speaker 1: so UH, you can go visit some of these stones.

299
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:24,840
Speaker 1: Some of them are apparently in the hands of private

300
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:29,200
Speaker 1: collectors as well, because they are still significant in their

301
00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:32,840
Speaker 1: in antiquity and continue to be a cautionary tale. Even

302
00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:35,480
Speaker 1: though if he did not die in shame immediately after,

303
00:17:37,119 --> 00:17:38,800
Speaker 1: he went after the people that tried to make a

304
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:41,520
Speaker 1: fool of him, which I kind of love about the story.

305
00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: Don't be a jerk or fall prey to your own

306
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:47,600
Speaker 1: humorist is the moral of this story. Yeah. So that

307
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:51,480
Speaker 1: is the story of Johann Berenger's Lying Stones, which I

308
00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:54,679
Speaker 1: sort of just love. It's one of the stories that

309
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,080
Speaker 1: we wish there were even more records. There are no

310
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,399
Speaker 1: like portraits of him, for example, but I still just

311
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:04,440
Speaker 1: love that it's studied and examined. And Uh, as we've said,

312
00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 1: it's become almost like a fairy tale told to archaeology

313
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:14,199
Speaker 1: students on how not to be duped. I believe you

314
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 1: have some listener mail my maw. Indeed. Uh, this actually

315
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:21,400
Speaker 1: came to us on Facebook and it was in relation

316
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,280
Speaker 1: to a listener mail I had read about Caesar's horse

317
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:28,000
Speaker 1: possibly having toes instead of hooves. Uh. And this is

318
00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:30,040
Speaker 1: from our listener Adam. And he says, Hi, there a

319
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:32,600
Speaker 1: long time listener, first time writer, YadA, YadA, but high

320
00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:35,240
Speaker 1: and he said, my listener mail about Caesar's horse comes

321
00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:38,560
Speaker 1: from Stonius is the Twelve Caesars. Here's the quote in

322
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:42,879
Speaker 1: full quote. He wrote, A remarkable horse too, with feet

323
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,719
Speaker 1: that were almost human, for its hoofs were cloven in

324
00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: such a way as to look like toes. The horse

325
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,120
Speaker 1: was fold on his own place, and since the soothsayers

326
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:53,120
Speaker 1: had declared that it foretold the rule of the world,

327
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,840
Speaker 1: for its master, he reared it with the greatest care,

328
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:57,920
Speaker 1: and was the first to mount it, for it would

329
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:01,480
Speaker 1: endure no other rider. After words, too, he dedicated a

330
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 1: statue of it before the Temple of Venus Genetrics, which

331
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:08,399
Speaker 1: I hope I pronounced correctly. Uh this was published, Adam

332
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,360
Speaker 1: goes on to say, in about a d so far

333
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,919
Speaker 1: before the fourteenth century day your listener was able to

334
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:17,080
Speaker 1: trace it back to the problem with using Suetonius as

335
00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:19,240
Speaker 1: a historical source is that he does not judge the

336
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:21,520
Speaker 1: validity of many of the statements that he includes in

337
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:24,280
Speaker 1: his histories, although he sometimes does put in his own

338
00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:28,119
Speaker 1: two cents. Instead, he reports what others have said. Often

339
00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:29,919
Speaker 1: this means that he is reporting a source that we

340
00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:32,679
Speaker 1: have either lost the original source or we have no

341
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 1: idea where he got it from. In the Twelve Caesars,

342
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:37,960
Speaker 1: you get many folk tales, competing versions of events, and

343
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:41,240
Speaker 1: mystical explanations. What you get is a popular history and

344
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 1: a great story for those of us who studied history.

345
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:46,520
Speaker 1: We must remember that this was before any true historical

346
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,439
Speaker 1: theory had been established, so there's no filter. What it

347
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:51,199
Speaker 1: does show us is how people who lived at the

348
00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:53,439
Speaker 1: time understood their own history, and it can also be

349
00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:56,280
Speaker 1: used to confirm or support other versions that can be

350
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,000
Speaker 1: found elsewhere. Thanks so much, Adam, that's so cool. We

351
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,040
Speaker 1: also have a listener Jim on Twitter that mentioned it. Yes. Uh,

352
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:04,439
Speaker 1: he pretty much pointed us to the source, and then

353
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 1: I went looking on the internet and found that you can,

354
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:10,159
Speaker 1: because it's so old, get that entire book on the

355
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,280
Speaker 1: internet to read the whole thing if you want to. Yeah,

356
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:14,560
Speaker 1: it was part of Project Gutenberg, and I think in

357
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 1: my reply to Adam on our page if Anybody happens

358
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:22,800
Speaker 1: Secia is the link to the Project Gutenberg too, So yeah,

359
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:26,359
Speaker 1: it's kind of a cool thing. There is. There are

360
00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:31,960
Speaker 1: many sources of having the possible vestigil chose that we've

361
00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:34,680
Speaker 1: talked about before. Yeah, And and the thought at first

362
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,640
Speaker 1: that that was what people were talking about, And then

363
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 1: there was some discussion about whether the hoops had actually

364
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:44,600
Speaker 1: been cloven by a person to make them look like toes,

365
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:47,360
Speaker 1: so that it was like a human modification of course,

366
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:51,560
Speaker 1: which sounds terrible and painful to me, rather than sort

367
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:56,600
Speaker 1: of a naturally occurring and atavism in the horse's feet. Yes,

368
00:20:56,640 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: but as we know, horses did have a digil toes

369
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,200
Speaker 1: and sometimes they still love the bones that's that are

370
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:07,400
Speaker 1: part of that mechanism that are just above the hoof apparently. Yes,

371
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:11,639
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff the way animals evolved. Uh so, yeah, we

372
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: love that letter. It was super cool. Adam is uh

373
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,960
Speaker 1: very knowledgeable about the twelve Caesars and it's really fun

374
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: to talk to you about it. I love all the

375
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 1: analysis of where the twelve Caesars fits in to sort

376
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 1: of understand history. Yeah, awesome, I love it. So if

377
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 1: you would like to write us with your insights and

378
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 1: knowledge of history, you can do so at History Podcast

379
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. You can also connect with us

380
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,440
Speaker 1: on Facebook like Adam did, which is Facebook dot com,

381
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:41,680
Speaker 1: slash history class stuff, or on Twitter like Jim did

382
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: at missed in History. We're also on tumbler at missed

383
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 1: in History dot tumbler dot com, and we're on Pinterest.

384
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:50,479
Speaker 1: And if you would like to learn more about the

385
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:52,239
Speaker 1: subject we talked about today, you can go to our

386
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: website and type in the words lying stones and you

387
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,959
Speaker 1: will turn up a new article called ten famous vac

388
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,679
Speaker 1: Antiques and the suckers who bought them, Although not all

389
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:02,880
Speaker 1: those people are shuckers, a lot of them fooled experts.

390
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting read on ways that other people

391
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: have been hoaxed by fake items. And if you would

392
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,919
Speaker 1: like to learn about almost anything else you can think of,

393
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:14,919
Speaker 1: you can do that at our website as well. And

394
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:19,760
Speaker 1: that website is how stuff works dot com. For more

395
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, does it how

396
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. This episode of Stuff You Missed

397
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 1: in History Class is brought to you by Audible