Seranopithecus
Seranopithecus (from Serania + pithecus, sabamicised Old Messenian πίθηκος, “ape”) was the name given to the creature at the centre of one of the more elaborate hoaxes perpetrated in archaeological history. Fossilised bones from this supposed hominid “discovered” in the Helmin overseas territory of Múskatsströnd prompted extensive research and digging in the area before more rigorous investigation discovered the fraud.
Discovery
The discovery of fragments of the skull and jaw of a hitherto unidentified hominid was reported by Seigla Margæs in 1900, although she claimed to have made the initial discovery three years earlier, when the site of a new ædur at the edge of the Múskatsströnd town of Fiðrildishöfn was being cleared, unearthing further fragments over the next six months. Margæs was prominent in the local community – her parents had been among the original thirty land grantees when the town was founded – and was known as an amateur naturalist.
The report drew the interest of Harður Várfells, the curator of the museum at the territorial capital, Nýfoss, who travelled to Fiðrildishöfn to make his own investigations of the site and its surrounding area alongside Margæs. His study of her discoveries led him to the conclusion that this was indeed a true hominid, much larger and much more physically advanced than any descendant of simian stock found in the Seranias to date. It was Várfells who gave the discovery the Messenian taxonomic name Seranopithecus papilioporti, literally the “Seranian ape from Fiðrildishöfn”.
Debunking
The discovery met with a high degree of scepticism from the scientific community from the beginning. The existence of a creature demonstrably similar in skeletal structure to the great apes of the Old World was wholly at odds with the evidence presented by the fossil record in Serania, which had produced to date nothing to indicate the existence of native hominids – or, indeed, any form of primate more developed than various species of monkey. While climatic conditions in much of the Seranias do not permit bones to remain intact long enough to become fossilised – thus, at least potentially, leaving a sizeable gap in the record – the possibility of such an oversight struck many specialists as unlikely.
Even so, enough support was received from persons of sufficient standing within the Messenian scientific community that the claim remained viable for some years, with a number of specialists in the field making the long trans-oceanic journey to the Múskatsströnd in search of corroborative evidence. Reports of the original discovery and the subsequent activity may, indeed, have contributed to a markedly higher profile for the area – and to a lesser extent for the rest of the Gleymtlönd – in Helminthasse at the time, and a significant increase in emigration to the territory.
It would not be until 1930 that the veneer of acceptance around the Seranopithecus story was cracked, when detailed examination by the respected Siursk palaeontologist Magnús Vitann established that the skull fragments were almost certainly those of a human child of between ten and twelve years of age, which had been treated with acid and a solution of iron to simulate great age, while the jaw fragments belonged to a native simian species, with the teeth somewhat reshaped to be more indicative of a carnivorous diet. (Territorial law officers searched for further remains, on the basis that the dead child had not been identified; this proved unsuccessful and was quietly dropped after just over a year.)
After-effects
The reasons for the perpetration of such an elaborate hoax remain unclear, even today. Margæs died from pneumonia in 1916, before the truth was established, and friends and acquaintances are adamant that she gave no indication that she had sought to deceive, or even exhibited any financial motives for the hoax (her estate was, from appearances, no more than might have been expected for a mature woman of independent, if reduced, circumstances). Most suspicion has settled on Várfells, who, by the time of Vitann’s breaking of the hoax, had returned to Helminthasse; he claimed no intent to gain financially, but instead suggested that he and Margæs had swept up in aggrandising claims by the Helmin scientific community.
The current legacy of the Seranopithecus hoax seems a mixture of amusement and quiet pride, and the phenomenon features significantly in local publicity material. Indeed, a supposed “reconstruction” of the species based on claims from the mid-1910s is displayed in the museum in which Várfells worked, which remains open today.