Yep, there's one born every minute.

Forgeries: practical jokes somebody usually makes money from. Here are the answers.

1. The 'Donation of Constantine' was an early medieval forgery in which the Emperor Constantine was said to….
   
   • Give authority over the Church to Rome. Easy one.
2. An 18th-century German archaeologist, Johann Beringer, was fond of fossils. He kept finding unusual ones – bizarre stone impressions of mating frogs, for instance, or even ones with writing on them. What turned out to be the solution to the mystery of the Beringer fossils?
   
   • Student pranks. Fossils weren't generally accepted yet, and let's face it, the Professor was a bit gullible.
3. In his 1834 book, The American Nations, Constantine Rafinesque claimed what?
   
   • That he had translated an epic poem documenting the crossing of the Bering Strait by the Lenape Indians. Only completely debunked in the 1990s, apparently it confused even the modern Lenape.
4. The Piltdown Man hoax was believed for 41 years. The fake fossil was made up of…
   
   • An orangutan's jaw and a human skull. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
5. In 1866, Josiah Whitney claimed to have found what in Calaveras County, California?
   
   • The oldest human skull. Bret Harte wrote a snarky poem about it.
6. In 1869, men working for American entrepreneur George Hull dug up a 'petrified giant' (really a stone statue) in Cardiff, New York. It wasn't hard for them to find: Hull had buried it there a year before. Soon, everybody wanted to see this 'genuine fossil.' What happened when famous showman PT Barnum found out about it?
   
   • He created his own fake Cardiff Giant, and claimed it was the original. Then, when Hull tried to sue him, it got really interesting.
7. In the 1890s, the Louvre was very embarrassed when its prized Tiara of Saitaphernes was shown to be a modern forgery. It was a really pretty hat full of bas reliefs and made of a solid pound of gold. What gave it away?
   
   • The modern soldering, plus the fact that the dents were all in non-interesting places. And made with a ball peen hammer.
8. In addition to the Tiara of Saitaphernes, the Louvre also owns…
   
   • Eight Mona Lisas. Doctor Who fans knew this. They all say 'This is a fake' in felt-tip pen underneath.
9. In 1925, H Rider Haggard (of all people) gave British explorer Percy Fawcett a mysterious idol said to be from lost Atlantis. Neither Haggard nor Fawcett realised that it was a fake. What did this 'find' lead Fawcett to do?
   
   • Head to Brazil to find lost Atlantis, and never return. Yes, there's a movie.
10. You've heard of Konrad Kujau, who forged Hitler's diaries. What unusual case arose after his death?
    
    • His 'niece' was convicted of signing his name to art fakes, thus creating 'forged forgeries'. Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder.

So the next time somebody offers you the Tiara of Saitaphernes, be sure to look on the bottom to make sure it doesn't say, 'Made in Odessa'.

See you at the museum!

Dmitri Gheorgheni

30.07.18 Front Page

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