The International Commission which was appointed to inquire into the
archaeological " discoveries " at Glozel, near Vichy, has published its report. Those who had read the intelligent forecasts in the British Press were prepared for what it says. It condemns nobody in the sense that it accuses nobody of bad faith, but it states frankly that the all too wonderful mass of alphabetiform tablets and drawings of reindeer unearthed in a farmer's field at Glozel are of recent origin. They do not belong, as had been said by the discoverers, to 4000-3500 B.C., and they consequently throw no light whatever on the writing of the population of the Auvergne in those days—if they did write. There has been no misjudgment of facts, or no hoax, comparable with this since the learned Dr. Bode pledged his reputation that a wax bust was by Leonardo da Vinci—the -bust which on subsequent examination was found to contain an article of clothing belonging to the early nineteenth century and which was thenceforward credibly assigned to the Englishman, R. C. Lucas.
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