The Cardiff Giant Hoax

I saw this in my local newspaper yesterday: In 1870, the "Cardiff Giant," supposedly the petrified remains of a human discovered in Cardiff, NY, was revealed to be nothing more than carved gypsum. I had to think about that for a minute. I mean, seriously, people were fooled by carved gypsum? Well, here it is, in all its er, rigid glory, lol! I just love this part: Speculation ran rampant over what the giant might be. The central debate was between those who thought it was a petrified man and those who believed it to be an ancient statue. The ‘petrifactionists’ theorized that it was one of the giants mentioned in the Bible, Genesis 6:4, where it says, “There were giants in the earth in those days.” Those who promoted the statue theory followed the lead of Dr. John F. Boynton, who speculated that a Jesuit missionary had carved it sometime during the seventeenth century to impress the local indians. That was the conventional wisdom of the day. Sort of reminds me of today's conventional wisdom about the origins of chess...