I'm behind on everything and don't have time to write, as usual, but I wanted to pass on a few things while I'm eating my lunch.

In the interest of historic preservation, I'd like to pass on these two images (both by Killbuck Norman) to add to your Fake Hercules Sword dank meme stash:

Fair is fair, so it's legitimate to pass on this link to a fascinating video that cuts right to the heart of the matter and makes excellent use of clipart images. For added fun, I recommend turning on the auto-generated captioning. Enjoy!

Finally, some of you are no doubt aware of the ongoing discussion on last week's blog post about calcite weathering and the Kensington Rune Stone. As of this writing there are 155 comments, many of which are useful and some of which are not. I was recently made aware that there's been a somewhat parallel discussion about the issues raised in the post in the Kensington Rune Stone International Supporters Club group on Facebook (it's an open group, so you can go and read what's there if you like). This is, I think, a useful statement to have on the record:

If you've been paying attention, that statement speaks volumes. Moving on. 

I haven't gone over it in detail, but it looks pretty nice to me. I need to make some time to add in the other known swords that are lurking around out there and update the database. That will happen some day, but it is not this day. 

Enjoy Swordgate Poster Version 5!

"We all can't shine at the same time."

The timeless wisdom of Rapper Juicy J. becomes reality with Fake Hercules Sword 16: "The Brassy One."

JA Sterling (freelance writer, Friend of Swordgate, and frequent contributor to the Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame group on Facebook) stumbled upon Sword 16 on this blog (you'll need to scroll down a bit in order to see the original photo) while searching for something else. Here is the only image we have so far, cropped and rotated:

Note (Andy White): My hunch is that, unlike the other swords, a heavy artificial patina was never applied to Sword 16. It seems that the "fake" patina was applied to the other swords to increase their appeal as antiques (perhaps so they could be marketed not as authentic ancient Roman artifacts but as relics related to the nineteenth century Grand Tour). This makes Sword 16 very interesting: why was no fake patina applied to this particular sword? Where was this sword "found" and photographed? 

Pablo Benavente obtained these great images of the Friocero Sword (Sword 15) from the sword's owner. There are a lot of things to look at here in comparison to the other swords.  Unfortunately for me, I don't have time to do a close inspection right now.  I thought the best thing to do would be to just make the images available so that those of you out there in Swordgate land can have a look. Enjoy! 

The comments on my post from the other day about the Wolter-Pulitzer "plan" for excavating what they claim are giant human remains have largely shifted to a discussion about Pulitzer's "Roman sword" claim. The only substantive statement that Pulitzer made about their purported giant was this: 

"we can assure you the individuals involved are ALL at the University Level, very well respected, far and wide published and heralded within their field. Even more exciting than the discovery is all the incredible academic talent attracted to the find. The way this works, is there are countless experts, scientists, academics, archaeologists and anthropologists who have seen our work on TV and Books."

You can add that promise to his tab, I guess: many incredible, respected academics all clamoring to work with him on giant bones. We'll see how that goes. 

But on to the "Roman sword." 

The subject of Pulitzer's sword claims naturally comes up whenever he makes an evidence-free assertion, as it speaks directly to his credibility when he says "trust me." You're welcome to wade though the comments in the previous post, but I thought I'd pull from the weeds and reiterate my response (moderately edited but substantively the same) to his goading attempt to get me to debate him about the sword.

I'm open to the idea of having a debate (or some kind of structured conversation) with Pulitzer about the "Roman sword" and the other Hercules-hilted swords. It would probably be a more effective and less problematic way to communicate my thoughts to a different audience than my proposal to publish a piece in Ancient American magazine.  I have two main concerns that would have to be addressed in order to move forward with the idea of a "debate, both having to do with transparency. 

1) First, there is no way I would collaborate with Pulitzer on something that he controls and that would be part of his "brand." Why? Because he has repeatedly shown himself to be untrustworthy. He has shown that using distortion, misrepresentation, and outright lies is part of his standard operating procedure: his silly behavior has no place in an honest discussion. I've been in a lot of disagreements with colleagues, but none of those professional colleagues has ever questioned my credentials, my expertise, and my intentions. That sort of thing is just not a normal part of a professional discussion about facts, evidence, and interpretation. But Pulitzer does it frequently (including in the comments on the last post, where he implied that I was an anti-Semite). In short, Pulitzer has not provided any reason for me to take his word on anything and plenty of reasons to be skeptical. It would be stupid to trust him with producing content that is unbiased, and it would be wrong to give him control over how that content is made available.  

2) Second: data! When professionals have a debate, they refer to data. I have been open with mine, but Pulitzer has never provided his. You cannot have a debate where one side says "I have that data but I'm not going to show it to you, so you'll just have to believe me" (there's that credibility issue again). It may work that way in "forbidden truth" circus, but it doesn't work that way in the real world. Pulitzer has made reference to his XRF data numerous times to support his claim(s), but has not provided it. How could I fairly evaluate claims about his data when I don't actually have access to the data? That would be like agreeing to a poker game where I show my hand at the end but Pulitzer just gets to state what's in his without actually revealing it. Why would anyone agree to those rules? In order for me to have a real discussion about the sword with Pulitzer, he'll need to provide his data ahead of time so that we both have access to the same information. And I'll need a copy of Commodus's Secret so I can refer to Pulitzer's argument about the sword there. If he wants to have a discussion about evidence, he needs to stop being so slippery and put his cards down so we can see them.

If Pulitzer really wants a sword discussion, it will have to be something that isn't controlled by him and he'll have to (finally) let us all see the fabled XRF data that he's been hanging his claims on. And he needs to provide his interpretation(s) of the sword in a stable format (i.e., in his book, which he says is now complete) where the claims are in black and white and can be evaluated on their merits. Those are reasonable, fair, and logical conditions. Without transparency in the medium and data, a "debate" would be nothing but an empty exercise. Without transparency, I'll pass.

I have been living in South Carolina for less than a year. While I still have a lot to learn about local and regional culture, I have picked up a few things.  In the spirit of my adopted home, I made this card for J. Hutton Pulitzer:

If you don't understand the meaning of the phrase, look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

Pulitzer has been taking "pre-order" money for books titled Solomon's Secret and Commodus's Secret since at least November of 2014. He's been taking money and providing in return a "100% guarantee" that those who pre-ordered the book(s) can get their money back at any time. The estimated shipping date, meanwhile, has been a moving target.  When I wrote about all of this during #Swordgate, the websites and videos advertising the books suddenly disappeared. I've been contacted by several people who tell me they've tried to contact Pulitzer to get their money back, but their emails go unanswered (PayPal does not refund money after 180 days, so that's no longer an option for those that ordered the package long ago). The last online presence for marketing the books that I'm aware of (a Facebook page) became inaccessible last night as Pulitzer made this promise on the Fake Hercules Swords Facebook group through a third party:​

And when I click on that link, I get this message:

"This download link (https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/df.php?txn_id=XXXXX) has expired. Please contact the merchant at [email protected]."

That's it. You're at a dead end. Several people have told me that Pulitzer and/or whoever is supposed to be answering the emails is not replying to their requests for instructions on getting a refund. Notice that this person ordered in 2014, so the 180 day PayPal window has long since closed. I wrote an email to [email protected] (as the Rip-Off Report response stated I should) but have not gotten a response.  The person who emailed me the receipt wrote this:

"Andy,

This is what I got when I pre-ordered the Solomon's secret book. The link never gave me anything when I clicked it. Now its expired. No one responds to emails at the gmail account. I finally got Pulitzer to respond to a message on Facebook. He told me I had to get a refund through PayPal. But, PayPal only lets you do that for 6 months. Then you are out of luck."

I extend an open invitation to Pulitzer to visit us on Facebook and explain what is going on with these book orders.  

My unsolicited advice is this: refund all the money to everyone and then let those who still want the books (should they ever be produced) order them again. That would be the responsible thing to do at this point.  

I think there are probably legal options available to those of you who have attempted to get your money back but have been unsuccessful. 

At the end of yesterday's blog post about Ancient American and the non-sword article in the latest issue, I wondered aloud if the magazine would publish a piece by me about the swords. This morning I emailed Wayne May (publisher) to ask him that very question and got a speedy response:

"Yes, definitely, submit your article, we will publish it." 

With some quick correspondence, I established that it should be no longer than about 2000-3000 words and that I would be allowed to publish my article on my own website 30 days after the issue is released. The deadline to make the September issue is August 1.  I'm hoping to make that deadline even given everything that's going on -- I've already written who-in-the-hell-knows-how-many words about the swords, so it shouldn't be that tough. I'll keep you posted.

I'll break the suspense and answer the question right away with a quote from page five of the latest issue:

"The purpose of Ancient American is to describe the true prehistory of the American continent, regardless of presently fashionable belief systems, and provide a public forum for certified experts and non-professionals alike to freely express their views without fear or favor."

My experience with Ancient American has been limited. My wife bought me an issue about a year and a half ago that had a cover story about a "giant skeleton" from New York (I wrote about it here), and I bought another issue last spring while I was trying to track down the story of the "oxhide ingot" from Michigan. 

I bought the latest issue (111) this morning because it has the "Roman sword" on the cover and an article titled "The Cursed Oak Island Artifacts" by J. Hutton Pulitzer. I skimmed through the article and didn't see anything about the sword. If you can't get enough of Pulitzer's sour grapes "tech-mogul-turned-explorer-turned-warrior-for-truth" puffery, then by all means you should spend your own $4.95 to read about the latitudes and longitudes of where he takes phone calls from important people who think he's awesome. Otherwise, save your money.

As I flipped through the rest of the pdf, I couldn't help but wonder about the audience for this publication. The first "news" piece in this issue ("Traces Of A 9,000-Year-Old Lost Unknown Civilization Discovered in Lake Huron, Michigan") is a word-for-word reprinting of a piece that has been available free online at the Message To Eagle website since August of 2014. Well, it's not quite word-for-word, as the printed copy that was cut-and-pasted into the magazine includes one of the photo captions out-of-place in the text and the phrase "Lake Huron lost civilization" (presumably a page header) inserted into the narrative twice.  My colleagues at Michigan who are doing this work may be surprised to learn that they're uncovering a "lost, unknown civilization" rather than the remains hunting blinds for driving caribou.

Reading on in this issue, you'll find a story about a rock from Michigan that was somehow determined by Wayne May (the publisher) to be an idol of a human head dating to the period 1000 BC - AD 400, Pulitzer's piece, an article about bison that was also reprinted straight from content that's freely accessible online, a review of the almost-forty-year-old Brad Steiger book Worlds Before Our Own by former Nazi Frank Joseph, a misleading article about the Kennewick Man controversy, some advertisements for books . . . finally there are a few pieces which may actually contain some content related to original scholarship.  Since I paid my $4.95, I'll actually read through those and see if there's anything I'm interested in writing about.

Ancient American has been in print since 1993. As far as I can tell, much of the content has been directed at promoting just about anything that fits within a hyper-diffusionist paradigm: everyone, everywhere, all the time. The great irony in how the magazine bills itself (quoted above) is that it's really impossible to both "describe the true prehistory" and allow all ideas equal weight "without fear or favor."  Not all ideas about prehistory can be "true," of course, so how do you separate the credible from the non-credible within some kind of "safe space" where we all pledge not to think critically?  You can't. An unwillingness to try to falsify anything means you have to accept everything and somehow fit it all into a narrative. When you're mired only on the induction side of the inductive-deductive process (trying to concoct a story to explain the "facts" that you've got in front you), you really run into a problem if you have no means or desire to winnow out good pieces of evidence from the garbage (see this post for an expanded discussion).  So paint me a picture of the "true prehistory" of North America that incorporates everyone's bad ideas, misinterpretations, and fraudulent artifacts. I'd like to see that.

The stated purpose of Ancient American makes me wonder if the magazine would be amenable to a Fake Hercules Sword article written by me?  Or perhaps a point-counterpoint where Pulitzer and I can discuss the key issues around the sword(s).  If you really want to get beyond "fashionable belief systems," you might want to try embracing the self-correcting nature of science. It tends to produce some pretty good results if you let it.

And you may also want to invest in some additional proofreading.