Cardiff Giant
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[edit] Definition
[edit] History
The moving force behind the Cardiff hoax was one George Hull, a cigar maker. A confirmed and argumentative atheist, in 1866 Hull became involved in an argument with a revivalist preacher, the Reverend Turk, in which, amongst other things, they debated the literal truth of the passage "There were giants in the earth in those days" (Genesis 6:4) For more information on these giants, see the article on Nephilim.
Hull decided to provide the faithful with spurious evidence of giants. He had the "giant" carved out of gypsum by a sculptor called Edwin Burkhart and two assistants; it was then stealthily transported to the farm of Hull's accomplice and brother-in-law, William C. Newell, where it was buried to be "discovered" by two laborers who had been hired to dig a well in the spot where Newell had buried the giant.
News of the find spread rapidly, and tourists flocked to see it, paying fifty cents a head. A week after the "discovery", Newell, acting as Hull's frontman, sold the giant for thirty thousand dollars --- a considerable sum in those days.
The hoaxers were wise to cash in quickly. The famous paleontologist Otheniel Marsh denounced the giant as a fake:
- It is of very recent origin, and a most decided humbug ... I am surprised that any scientific observers should not have at once detected the unmistakable evidence against its antiquity.
The fraud quickly unravelled. Hull's financial links with Newell were exposed; Fort Dodge quarrymen testified that they'd sold Hull the gypsum; local farmers told of seeing Hull with a mysterious enormous packing case; and the sculptors Hull had hired came forward. Eventually Hull confessed to the fraud. Neither Hull nor Newell was charged with any offense: presumably they had succeeded in wording their claims about the giant to stay on the right side of the law.
Today, the giant can be seen in the Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown[1], a reminder of one of the most ingenious and successful hoaxes in history.
