Fake fossils with Hebrew inscriptions, 1745.

GERMANY - APRIL 08: Illustration from the second edition of �Lithographiae Wirceburgensis� (�Wurzburg Lithography�) by Joannes Bartholomaeus Beringer (d 1740) published in Frankfurt in 1767. In 1726, Beringer, a professor at Wurzburg in Germany, was fooled by two colleagues who had fake fossils carved and planted near the town. They hated his pompous arrogance and wanted to humiliate him. Beringer believed the �fossils� to be genuine, and it was only after the publication of the first edition of this work in 1726 that he discovered the hoax. With modern knowledge, it is easy to dismiss Beringer as naive for believing that soft tissue, the Moon, and writing, could be fossilised. The false fossils were known thereafter as Lugensteine, or �lying stones�. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)