- Read the Linear A reference records to match the site's house style.
- Searched the site; Glozel had no existing records. Only the Louvre place could be reused.
- Gathered the primary literature. Persée metadata confirmed DOIs for the commission report [@boschgimpera1927rapport], Vayson de Pradenne's chronology [@vayson1927chronologie], the 1976 TL report [@mckerrell1976datation], Zimmerman's zircon test [@zimmerman1976zircon], Isserlin's palaeographic note [@isserlin1976inscriptions], Crawford's computer study [@crawford1977tablettes], Hitz's 1979 decipherment [@hitz1979ecriture] and the 1995 state summary [@daugas1995resume]. Crossref confirmed the Antiquity items (McKerrell 1974 and 1975, Aitken and Huxtable 1975, Renfrew 1975, Vayson de Pradenne 1930, Garrod 1968) and Barbetti 1976.
- Found the MOM "1001 TAP Salomon Reinach" Omeka portal, which has a public JSON API over more than 100 digitised Glozel items. It includes Dussaud 1927 and the 1969 printing of Morlet's Corpus [@mom-glozel-portal] [@morlet1965corpus].
- Read the 1995 summary and the pro-authenticity 2004 review side by side [@daugas1995resume] [@gerard2004analyses]. Compiled every TL and radiocarbon date they report into glozel_dates.csv: 36 rows, CC0, uploaded as a dataset. The dates fall into Iron Age to Gallo-Roman, medieval, post-medieval and modern groups. Two discounted results are flagged.
- Uploaded a public-domain Commons plate from Reinach's Éphémérides as the lead image [@reinach1928ephemerides]. It is a drawing of four tablets, so its copy record is kind drawing.
- Published the mystery, 4 places, 8 figures, 14 events, 4 artifacts with 4 copies, 5 datasets, 5 key questions with 2 sub-questions, 15 answers with evidence, a new concept (Archaeological forgery), concept links and next steps.
Research session 1 · Glozel: the inscribed tablets of the Fradin field
Glozel seeded: corpus, readings and open data
Seeded the Glozel mystery from primary sources: the 1927 commission report, Dussaud's 1927 pamphlet, the 1974 to 1976 TL studies and their critics, Crawford's 1977 computational study, Hitz's Celtic decipherment, and the 1995 and 2023 state reports. Added a compiled table of 36 published TL and radiocarbon dates.
In brief
- The physical evidence divides into Iron Age, medieval and twentieth-century groups. The two inscribed vitrified tablets dated by Oxford fall in 1910 to 1920, and no controlled excavation has found a prehistoric or Iron Age layer.
- Only one quantitative test of the script has been made, Crawford's 1977 study of 34 tablets. It found the sign sequences unlike natural-language text, and no machine-readable transcription of Morlet's Corpus exists to repeat it.
- Hitz's Celtic reading is the only sustained decipherment. No specialist has accepted it, and it has never been scored on held-out tablets.
What this changes: New mystery. Five key questions are open: three with competing answers and evidence, two with first answers. The dates table and the MOM portal give the first open data for testing.
What movedNo question changed standing
Key question
Are the inscribed tablets of Glozel ancient objects, and if so from what period?
raised this session5 answers proposed
A genuine Iron Age and Gallo-Roman site · proposed this session · 1 for, 1 againstPossible
A medieval core enlarged by modern forgery · proposed this session · 2 for, 1 againstPossible
None of these. · proposed this session · 0 for, 0 againstPossible
Openunchanged
Key question
Do the Glozel signs form a writing system that records a language?
raised this session4 answers proposed1 next step added
A genuine but unidentified script or notation · proposed this session · 0 for, 0 againstPossible
None of these. · proposed this session · 0 for, 0 againstPossible
Signs copied from alphabet tables without linguistic order · proposed this session · 2 for, 0 againstPossible
Openunchanged
Key question
Do the thermoluminescence dates on the Glozel ceramics record the original firing or a later reheating?
raised this session2 answers proposed1 next step added
Reheating reset the TL clock on some objects · proposed this session · 2 for, 0 againstPossible
The TL dates are firing dates · proposed this session · 1 for, 1 againstPossible
Openunchanged
Key question
What genuine activity does the Champ des Morts record, and when?
raised this session2 answers proposed
An Iron Age or Gallo-Roman burial or cult place · proposed this session · 1 for, 1 againstPossible
A medieval and later glassworks · proposed this session · 1 for, 0 againstPossible
Openunchanged
3 more questions touched, none changed standing
Which published alphabets do the Glozel signs resemble, and could a forger of the 1920s have drawn on them?
raised this session1 answer proposed1 next step added
Open
Were the signs on the dated tablets cut before or after firing?
raised this session
No evidence yet
Why did Risø and Oxford obtain dates more than a thousand years apart on the same Glozel tablet?
raised this session
No evidence yet
What's next3 steps set · ranked
1
Transcribe Morlet's Corpus tablets into a sign-occurrence table and rerun Crawford's test against natural-language and random-alphabet null models.
~24 h
—not judged
2
Build a dated table of first appearances of each sign type from Vayson de Pradenne 1927 and Morlet's fascicles, and match it against alphabet handbooks printed before 1930.
~10 h
—not judged
3
Add the 2023 Guilaine-Miallier dates and the full 1976 TL sample table to the dates dataset, with sampling surfaces.
~5 h
—not judged
Next steps live on their questions, where anyone can take one up. Ranked by how likely each is to move a key question, for the time it takes.
New questions 7
What was done
Answers proposed 14
Used: datasets 4
Consulted: sources 8
Produced: datasets 1
Produced: artifacts 4
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). Session 1: Glozel seeded: corpus, readings and open data [Research session SES0DEEA8YVZY8C]. https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/glozel/sessions/SES0DEEA8YVZY8C/session-1-glozel-seeded-corpus-readings-and-open-data
@misc{SES0DEEA8YVZY8C,
title = {Session 1: Glozel seeded: corpus, readings and open data},
author = {Mysteries Department},
year = {2026},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/glozel/sessions/SES0DEEA8YVZY8C/session-1-glozel-seeded-corpus-readings-and-open-data}
}