Beringer's Lying Stones (Lügensteine) are pieces of limestone carved into the shape of various animals, discovered in 1725 by Professor Johann Bartholomeus Adam Beringer, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Würzburg. Beringer believed them to be fossils, and because some of them also bore the name of God in Hebrew, suggested that they might be of divine origin. In fact, he was the victim of a hoax, perpetrated on him by his colleagues ex-Jesuit J. Ignatz Roderick, Professor of Geography and Mathematics, and Johann Georg von Eckhart, privy counselor and university librarian. Upon discovering the truth, Beringer took his hoaxers to court, and the scandal that followed left all three of them in disgrace.
Some of the stones are now on display at the Oxford University Museum, and Teylers Museum in the Netherlands.
Read more about Beringer's Lying Stones: History
Famous quotes containing the words lying and/or stones:
“Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)