Cardiff Giant — Carved Gypsum Hoax
1869 “petrified man” exhibited as wonder, quickly exposed as carved gypsum — museum-education staple about evidence standards.
Sources Farmers’ Museum / Cooperstown historical holdings summaries; Wikimedia Commons Cardiff Giant category (PD-US period photos)
In 1869 a carved gypsum figure billed as a petrified man — the Cardiff Giant — drew paying crowds before exposure as a hoax. It remains a teaching object about evidence standards: spectacle first, geology later.
Status hoax. Ideal pair with the Voynich file: known fabrication beside an open manuscript.