Beringer's Lying Stones

The scientific community at the time was still unsure as to what fossils actually were, the notion that they were the petrified remains of once-living organisms being merely one of several competing hypotheses.

Beringer held high positions including chief physician to the Julian Hospital and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University.

Shortly after the book went into print, he realized that he had been duped and took legal action against Roderique and von Eckhart and won the case.

The two were removed from their positions at the university and Roderique was banished from Würzburg but Beringer's reputation was forever destroyed.

Some critics had pointed out chisel marks on the rocks and Beringer noted that: ...the figures...are so exactly fitted to the dimensions of the stones, that one would swear that they are the work of a very meticulous sculptor...[and they] seem to bear unmistakable indications of the sculptor's knife... One would swear that he discerned in many of them the strokes of a knife gone awry, and superfluous gouges in several directions.

Some of the court transcript still exists, and in the testimony the hoaxers make clear that they did indeed want to discredit Beringer, because, they said, "he was so arrogant and despised us all".