Johann Beringer, a German scholar, professor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Würzburg, begins acquiring the controversial "Lügensteine" or "lying stones" on May 31, 1725. Unbeknownst to him, the stones were part of an elaborate hoax to discredit him.
He was supplied with the stones by three local youths he had hired to collect fossils in the area of Mount Eibelstadt near Würzburg, Germany. The stones were actually hand-carved and planted by two of his colleagues, J. Ignatz Roderick and Johann Georg von Eckhart, who wanted to ruin his reputation due to his perceived arrogance. Beringer, completely taken in by the deception, collected around 2,000 of the stones and convinced the stones were genuine fossils of divine origin, published his detailed study book on April 13,1726, "Lithographiae Wirceburgensis" shortly before discovering the fraud.
Beringer initiated judicial proceedings against the hoaxers to clear his name, winning the court case, but the scandal permanently damaged his scientific reputation. Over 400 of the roughly 2,000 original "lying stones" still exist today in various museum collections.
