8
Got burned by a fake 'Viking' axe head at a dig site in Minnesota
Last summer I was working a private dig near Red Wing, Minnesota and a guy brought in this rusty axe head claiming it was from a 10th century Norse site. He had papers and everything, but I noticed the patina looked wrong - too uniform, like it was forced with chemicals. Turns out it was a replica made in a shop in Ohio, and he knew it. We lost 3 days of real work chasing that dead end. Has anyone else dealt with fake artifacts being planted on purpose?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
nathanbennett1mo ago
Interesting take but I see it differently. The guy showing up with papers already smells like a setup, not a genius scheme to ruin some professor's career. Most serious dig teams aren't in a turf war like that, especially not in Minnesota where the Norse connection is already super controversial and most academics avoid it like the plague.
There's a guy in Ohio who runs a side business churning out these replicas for ren faire folks and collectors, I've seen his work before. The patina trick is something he brags about on his website actually. My money says the guy bought it cheap from him, wrote up some fake papers in his basement, and tried to sell it to you for a quick score. Losing three days on a fake hurts way more than some academic feud nobody outside the field even knows about.
5
susanh462mo ago
THINK about the angle nobody's bringing up - what if these fakes are a form of academic sabotage between competing dig teams? I heard from a buddy at the U of M that someone's been running a campaign to discredit specific researchers by planting forgeries at their sites. The fact that this guy had "papers" for the fake suggests somebody put real effort into making it look authentic, which goes way beyond a simple scam for profit.
1