A Star in the Rock

“Professor, this rock has a star on it.”
“Wonderful, another of these marvellous stones.”
“But don’t you think it looks as if it has been carved by hand?”
“Indeed it does, the hand of God. My theories about the nature of fossils are proved, I must write the book immediately.”

Illustration from Lithographiae Wirceburgensis

The conspirators were delighted.
“If he publishes he will be laughed at across Europe. We will be revenged.”
“But what if we are discovered? Already the stonecutter wants more money.”
“Don’t worry, he will lose his place in the University and we will be safe.”
They were very wrong.

In the 1720’s Professor Johann Beringer, professor of Natural History at the University of Würzburg, collected numerous fossils. At the time it was debated whether they were the remains of long dead animals and plants or had been created by God during the process of creation.

J. Ignatz Roderick and Georg von Eckhart, colleagues and rivals at the university, arranged for hundreds of mock fossils to be carved and placed where Beringer could find them. Beringer published his book, Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, which was universally mocked.

Then the stonemason came forward, as he hadn’t been paid, Beringer sued Roderick and Eckhart and won, they were dismissed from the university. Beringer remained at the university and wrote many more books, but none as controversial, Roderick and Eckhart died in poverty, not helped by the fact that the stonemason also won his case for unpaid wages!

This piece was written in response to the latest Carrot Ranch prompt; In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a rock star. You can feature a central character or write about the feeling like a rock star. Go where the prompt leads!

I, naturally, have been led up a curious byway of scientific history, I hope you enjoy it.