Case file · Folklore / legend
The Davenport Tablets
On 10 January 1877 Reverend Jacob Gass found two inscribed slate tablets in a mound near Davenport, Iowa; a third followed in January 1878. They seemed to show a lost literate civilization of 'mound builders'.
1877 CE · 41.52, -90.58 · status: hoax
The sceptical view
The Smithsonian's Cyrus Thomas dismissed them, and they are now regarded as a hoax, probably planted by members of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences to embarrass Gass.