Mysterious Glozel Chamber – Treasure or Fraud?

Vault Allegedly Filled with Artifacts, Some Neolithic

Oct 27, 2009

Was it a major archeological find of a Medieval magician's cache, Templars' hidden treasure or other arcane objects? A hoax? The discovery is still controversial.

In 1924, a French subterranean chamber was accidentally discovered by a cow who partially fell through the ground into a man-made chamber lined with interlocking bricks.

Emile Fraden, also spelled Fradin, rescued the bovine, then went back to explore the vault-like room. It contained shelves with many ancient and extraordinary objects including carved bones, antlers, statuettes of primitive deities and clay tablets covered with an unfamiliar runes. In following years, many human remains were found nearby, so it was dubbed Champ des Morts or Field of the Dead. Some noticed the area had a disquieting atmosphere.

Glozel Chamber Agreement

Albert Morlet MD who was interested in archeology heard about Fraden’s discovery and went to the farm in April 1925. He was impressed by what he saw and made an arrangement with the Fradens, giving them ownership of the artifacts and himself the exclusive rights to the publication and reproduction of all scientific information associated with the Glozel find.

Glozel Find – Seeds of Controversy

Dr. Capitan, a self-appointed archeological “expert,” wrote Morlet a letter suggesting the doctor write a detailed report of his findings which he would give to the Commission for Historic Monuments. Morlet realized that Capitan would get most of the credit while he did the majority of the work. He and the Fradens published a booklet, Nouvelle Station Néolithique, A New Neolithic Site, which infuriated Capitan. Egotistically, he believed they insulted his reputation, so he challenged the authenticity of Glozel and its artifacts and accused the Fradens of producing the objects. The controversy escalated when leading archeologists became involved.

Conjecture about the Glozel Cache

Before scientific archeology was developed, there was a lot of speculation about discoveries of artifacts. Some finds were attributed to Arthurian legend, pagan gods, faeries, giants, elves, leprechauns or other supernatural beings. Sorcerers, wizards, witches and others who practiced magick prized these artifacts during the Dark Ages. Stone Age objects were used to make talismans, amulets and potions. The practitioners needed a safe place to hide their cache, especially during the Burning Times, the height of witch persecutions and executions. This was the basis for postulating the find was a magician’s secret hiding place or a Knight Templars’ hoard because they used codes like the runes on the clay tablets.

Glozel Cache Still Controversial

In 1974, Fraden declared the artifacts were genuine, as proved by thermoluminescence. This technique heats pottery to temperatures between 572 and 932 degrees F to see if the object glows; the brighter the luminosity, the older the artifact. Drs. Hugh McKerrel of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland and Vagn Mejdahl of the Danish Atomic Energy Commission performed the tests.

They concluded the Glozel pottery had been made from 800 BCE to the time Jesus lived. This outraged some archeologists who accused the scientists of ineptly performing the tests. The BBC’s Chronicle program invited a new team of experts to test the pottery. Their results differed from those of the Fraden tests.

Fraden maintained the objects he found were genuine, not ones of his creation. He was an uneducated farmer. How could he know how to create faux pottery, figurines, axe heads and engrave unknown runes on clay tablets? Glozel still continues be controversial in archaeological circles.

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