RUDY LEROSEY-AUBRIL, Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, University of Montpellier II, Montpellier, France

The trade in fossils is a flourishing worldwide industry. This is easily demonstrated by the ever-growing number of commercial web sites that offer fossils for sale. Trilobites are among the most purchased fossils and they are therefore particularly attractive for counterfeiters. Thus, buying a Moroccan trilobite at a fossil show or on the Internet has become very hazardous (Moffitt, 1998; Koppka et al., 2004). Although they are probably the most common, Moroccan specimens are not the only counterfeits that can be bought by unsuspecting fossil collectors. Indeed, the intensive marketing of Russian trilobites from the St. Petersburg region has lead to the common use of restoration techniques to repair damages caused by aggressive use of high-powered air abrasive units. However, it is noteworthy that repairs on Russian trilobites are restricted to replacement of missing parts or restoring the colourations of the cuticle (Koppka et al., 2004). Casting of real specimens to produce entirely fake trilobites does not seem to be commonly used by Russian counterfeiters. Less well known, the faking of trilobites has also developed in South America over the last fifteen years, especially in Bolivia. The manufacture of fakes in Bolivia arose from the successful sale of real fossils. According to LeGrand Smith (pers. com.), as real trilobites became scarcer, fossils dealers started to fabricate good copies – that is, "authentic" representations of interior and exterior molds. When they realized that tourists were more interested in real specimens, dealers began to colour and alter the copies to make them look like they had come from an outcrop. To my knowledge, faking of South American trilobites, however, has so far been restricted to Bolivia. Here I show that the production of counterfeit trilobites has recently started in Chile, but more along the lines of folk art.

As soon as I opened the package, it was obvious that the specimen was not genuine. First, it was made of an argillaceous mixture with black minerals (mica?) that seemed to have been fired like pottery. The external surface of the "nodule" suggested that a pencil or spatula had been used to smooth the surface. In addition, small pits, visible on both sides, recalled those observed on Moroccan fakes. According to Koppka et al. (2004), these pits are the results of bursting bubbles of air that form during the hardening of the resin used to cast the trilobite. The fact that the visual surfaces of the large eyes were totally smooth constituted another argument in favour of a counterfeiting. In addition, a needle test proved that, although it was probably fired, the matrix remained soft. It was also impossible to explain how this nodule had been opened, as no marks of hammer (externally) or pointed tool (internally) were visible. A more precise comparison of the positive and the negative molds revealed that they did not match.

The "fossil" itself was highly unusual. As suggested by LeGrand Smith (pers. com.), the cephalon was probably a cast of a real calmoniid but the post-cephalic part was pure fantasy. Of course, the lateral expansions, though impressive, were obviously not trilobite appendages. Moreover, ventral appendages visible dorsally were hard to explain in an unflattened specimen. Lastly, their particular shapes with five spines at their edges are entirely different from what we know of the biramous appendages of trilobites.

Thus, all the elements of this specimen suggested a grotesque fake. But how had such fantastic fakery arisen in a counterfeiter’s imagination? A bit of research on San Pedro de Atacama suggested an answer.

San Pedro de Atacama (San Pedro for short) is a small town located in the Atacama Desert (north-east Chile), not far from the border with Bolivia. The so-called Moon Valley -- the volcanoes and the splendid lagoons that surround San Pedro -- have made tourism an important economic activity of the city. Thus, it is not surprising to find fake fossils for sale to tourists at the market. But are these fakes made in San Pedro or had they been imported from the nearby Bolivia? Molds of calmoniid trilobites, sold paired (positive and negative), are typically the kinds of fakes available in Bolivia. If we consider the proximity of the border with this country, it may be suggested that Chilean fakes have been imported from Bolivia. It is what I believed initially but a remark, made by a colleague of mine who frequently travels to South America, changed my opinion. He told me that the specimen reminded him the drawings, inspired by the pre-Colombian art, that decorate articles for sale to tourists. Among them, a man with raised hands (Figure 2) is a usual design observed on pottery and amulets.

The lateral expansions of the San Pedro specimen, with five, inwardly directed spines, strongly recall raised hands. Moreover, San Pedro is not only visited because of its beautiful surrounding landscapes. According to the official web site of the city, it is also "the archeological capital of Chile" and "the center of Atacama culture" (that is, the first sedentary people of Chile). Thus, I suspect that the lateral expansions were added to the fake, not to imitate trilobite appendages, but to give it a pre-Colombian aspect. More than a simple fossil or another pre-Colombian like artifact, this combination should be particularly attractive for the numerous tourists that visit San Pedro every year. Hopefully, such artistic modifications will enable even the less aware collectors to distinguish these fakes from real trilobites.

This specimen might be considered a link between palaeontology and archaeology!

* Koppka, J., Sonntag, H. and Burkard, H. 2004. Tutorial zum Erkennen von Trilobitenfälschungen

* Moffitt, J. R. 1998. Counterfeit trilobites. The Trilobite Papers 10: 16–20

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Figure 1.  The fake trilobite from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.  Positive and negative.  Scale bar 1 cm.

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Tom Whiteley has contributed paired photographs of the holotypes of two classic New York trilobites that were described and named by Jacob Green in his 1832 Monograph of the Trilobites of North America -- Ceraurus pleurexanthemus Green and Calymene bufo var. rana Green (that is, Eldredgeops rana). Both specimens are in the collections of the New York State Museum, Albany.

Ceraurus pleurexanthemus

The original holotype specimen (NYSM 4203, X 3, on the left) has been considered by several authors as too poorly preserved to be a reference to the species and genus, so specimens from the Walcott-Rust quarry became the defacto types. Of this specimen, Green (1832, p. 85) had written, "This remarkable organic relic was found near Newport, in the State of New York. It is embedded in black limestone shale, and so exceedingly depressed is this animal, that a very thin lamen of the slate removed from the surface would destroy every vestige of its appearance". Undeterred, Gerry Kloc persuaded Ed Landing to let him prepare Green’s holotype. The magnificent specimen on the right is the prepared trilobite.

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Eldredgeops rana

The holotype (NYSM 4645, X 3) comprises a partly exfoliated specimen and an external mold. Green (1832, p. 43) described it as, "found at Seneca, Ontario County, New York, in dark, slaty limestone which also contains cubical crystals of iron pyrites.   A fortunate blow of the hammer has fractured the rock which contains this trilobite, so neatly, as to present us at the same time with the petrified animal in an almost perfect state, and also with the mould or matrix in which it was embedded."

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