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“L’Affaire Glozel”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2015

Extract

On 27 September 1926 the learned world was startled by a letter from Monsieur Salomon Reinach, published in The Times. The writer expressed the opinion that the Palaeolithic period (the last phase of which is represented in France by La Madelaine) might have lasted up to 5000 B.C. M. Reinach is Director of the National Museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris; his reputation as a savant stands very high, and he is listened to with respect. The discoveries which prompted him to express this unorthodox opinion were, he says “ascertained last summer at Glozel near Vichy. In the same stratum, no doubt a deposit of a religious character, have been found—(1) objects akin to the Neolithic culture of the Aegean, one of them being an idol in the shape of a violin; (2) inscriptions closely related to those found in 1894 in an early Portuguese dolmen; (3) numerous engravings of animals on pebbles, the style of which is degenerate Magdalenian. As the objects classified under (1) and (2) date from about 4000–3500, degenerate Magdalenian outlines (3) cannot possibly be earlier, and we thus have a proof, which I think is conclusive, that the Magdalenian should be dated about 5000 B.C.” Thus from the outset the discussion of the issues has been confused by questionable fact and faulty inference.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1927

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References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following are by Dr Morlet and are referred to by Roman numerals in the text:—

I. Nouvelle station néolithique: 1935. pp.52.Google Scholar
II. L’Alphabet de Glozel: 1936. pp.24.Google Scholar
III. Le Glozélien: 1926. pp.54.Google Scholar
IV. [In preparation].Google Scholar

The above are printed and sold by the Imprimerie Belin, 26 rue Pasteur, Vichy, Allier.

The following articles by Dr Morlet have appeared in the Mercure de France (26 rue de Condé, Paris).

1 April 1926 Invention et diffusion de l’alphabet néolithique.Google Scholar
1 July 1926 L’Alphabet néolithique de Glozel.Google Scholar
19 September 1926 Idoles phalliques et bisexuées.Google Scholar
19 October 1926 Ceramique de Glozel.Google Scholar
1 November 1926 Les Journées mémorables de Gloze.Google Scholar
1 December 1926 Les Journées mémorables de Gloze.Google Scholar
19 November 1926 Lettre ouverte à Monsieur Elliot Smith.Google Scholar
Monsieur Breuil’s criticism is published in the current number of L’Anthropologie xxxvi, 1926, pp. 543558. Monsieur Reinach’s article appeared in the January number of the Antiquaries’ Journal (vii, 1–5). References to Glozel will also be found in:—Google Scholar
The Illustrated London News, 23 October 1926 Google Scholar
Observer, 31 October 1926 Google Scholar
La Vie Catholique (Fleurus, Belgium) 22 April 1927.Google Scholar
Bulletin de la Société d’Emulation du Bourbonnais, Sept.-October, 1926, with bibliography.Google Scholar