Authenticity and Scholarship

The popular claim was that the giant was a petrified antediluvian man, and specifically, for some, a giant of Genesis 6:4, "there were giants in the earth in those days." The scientific verdict was swift and unanimous. The Yale palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh examined it and pronounced it a recent and rather clumsy carving, "of very recent origin"; geologists observed that the fresh tool marks could not have endured long burial and that gypsum, being soluble, would have been eaten away by groundwater over any great span of time. These physical facts alone ruled out petrifaction.

George Hull's public confession, and the subsequent legal proceedings, confirmed that the giant had been manufactured in 1868 and planted to be found. Scott Tribble's history documents the scheme and its place in the era's clashes between biblical literalism and science. The Farmers' Museum today displays the giant openly as a hoax. Its interest lies in what it reveals about credulity, showmanship, and nineteenth-century debates over scripture.