Archaeological mistakes and forgeries
Myths and archaeology have fascinated people for centuries. Many museums have bought into finds that were too extraordinary to be true.
In an amazing state of preservation
In 1896, the Louvre shelled out 200,000 francs for an ancient gold tiara, believed to have belonged to Scythian king Saitapharnes. A German archaeologist, Adolf Furtwängler, however questioned its authenticity, as the artifact lacked aging. In 1903, a goldsmith from Odessa, Israel Rouchomovsky, admitted to having created the crown, commissioned by Russian dealers.
Much younger than first believed
In 1960, the city of Hildesheim invested 25,000 Deutsche Marks (equivalent today to €56,000) in the acquisition of a golden depiction of the Egyptian god Amun-Re. Through radiocarbon dating of the statue, it was recently determined that it was not a 3,200-year-old artifact — but rather a fake created a century ago.
A bricklayer's fine work
The small town of Rheinzabern in southern Palatinate used to be the site of Roman pottery workshops. In the 19th century, the bricklayer Michael Kaufmann claimed to have found various reliefs, sculptures and ceramics from the ancient Roman settlement while searching for old stones and bricks. They were all strangely similar. It turned out he had produced them himself.
The last unicorn
The natural scientist Otto von Guericke (1602 - 1668) was convinced that unicorns had actually existed. In 1663, he reconstructed the skeleton of one using bones found near German town of Quedlinburg. His drawings were published in academic work on fossil science. The bones were actually from boring Ice Age mammoths and rhinos.
The distant past misunderstood
The exhibition "Fake & Facts — Wrong Tracks in Archaeology" at the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum begins with a vision of the future as revealed in the graphic novel "Motel of Mysteries" by David Macaulay. In it, archaeologists in the year 4022 come across the inventory of a buried motel on land once in the US. They think it's like finding the grave of King Tutanchamun but misinterpret the find.