{"it":{"id":"W11A34","kind":"artifact","sub":"Hoax or modern","name":"Burrows Cave","place":"cave never located","mat":"stones (claimed)","dims":"not recorded","loc":"cave never located","acc":"n/a","find":"Russell Burrows, claimed 1982, Richland Co. IL","flag":"modern hoax-fabrication","src":[115,475],"tags":["Hoax or modern"],"sum":"In April 1982 a man named Russell Burrows said he nearly fell into a hidden cave in Illinois. Inside, he said, were hundreds or thousands of carved stones.\n\nBurrows, a prison guard, said the stones bore figures and writing. Supporters read the inscriptions as Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Etruscan and other Old World scripts never used in North America. Burrows took some pieces away for study, then said he had been told to stay away. Allegations followed that thousands of items were removed and sold to collectors, and one buyer said the pieces he bought from Burrows were worthless fakes.\n\nWhat is hard to check is the cave itself. The cave has never been visited by anyone with the training to judge it, and the carvings have stayed out of the hands of qualified researchers.\n\nBarry Fell, a retired botanist and amateur epigrapher, and many members of the Epigraphic Society judged the stones to be fakes. Few professional scholars back it. James Scherz, a retired engineer and surveyor who led the Ancient Earthworks Society, wrote many articles defending the cave as genuine.\n\nIf the cave is real, why has no test excavation ever been allowed? (single source)","why":"An Illinois cave of carved stones that no qualified researcher has ever seen.","nfacts":0,"nsrc":2,"yt":"Check whether any object has independent testing.","rel":["W11A33"],"hook":"In April 1982 Russell Burrows said he found a cave of carved stones in Illinois."},"S":{"115":["Wikipedia Burrows Cave","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burrows_Cave&oldid=1354841262"],"475":["Wikipedia: Burrows Cave","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrows_Cave"]},"rec":{"id":"W11A34","alias":[],"ms":[],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"museum_accession","r":"not in staged/legacy artifact record (free sources)"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA187","a":"Old-World inscribed artifacts in Illinois","who":"Russell Burrows","main":"Considered hoax by archaeologists; cave never located","ms":"W11S73","st":"contradicted","n":"","nl":"1"}],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"art":{"claimed_anomaly":"Old-World inscribed artifacts in Illinois","mainstream_reading":"Considered hoax by archaeologists; cave never located","provenance_flag":"modern hoax-fabrication","current_location":"cave never located","find_circumstances":"Russell Burrows, claimed 1982, Richland Co. IL","claimant":"Russell Burrows","status":"contradicted","dimensions":"not recorded","material":"stones (claimed)","date":"","culture":"","museum_accession":"n/a","b":"S","s":["W11S73"]},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"W11S73","t":"Wikipedia Burrows Cave","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burrows_Cave&oldid=1354841262"},{"id":null,"t":"Wikipedia: Burrows Cave","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrows_Cave"},{"id":"VW11A34-3","t":"Critical Enquiry: Burrows Cave and diffusionism","u":"https://criticalenquiry.org/wp/burrows-cave-and-diffusionism/"}],"qs":["Nobody but its finder has shown where Burrows Cave is. What would it take to trust it?","If many Old World cultures had reached Illinois, what else should they have left behind?","Who gains when unprovable artifacts are sold?"]},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/m/W11A34-16x9.webp","w":1600,"hh":900,"alt":"Illustration: setting associated with Burrows Cave, cave never located","by":"Illustration made for The Nommo","lic":"","lu":"","p":"","g":true,"ct":false,"cap":"","sec":[]},"hh":[{"v":"not recorded","h":"Recorded dimensions","s":[223]}],"hs":{"223":["Wikipedia Burrows Cave","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Burrows_Cave&oldid=1354841262"]}}