Toronto Chapter - Beardmore: The Viking hoax that Scandalized the Royal Ontario Museum

Speakers: Douglas Hunter (York University)

Topic: Beardmore: The Viking hoax that Scandalized the Royal Ontario Museum

For some twenty years, a Viking grave purportedly discovered by an itinerant prospector in northern Ontario marred our understanding of the original European outreach to the Americas. Acquired in 1936 by Charles Trick Currelly, the celebrated director of the ROM’s archaeology division, the Beardmore relics were only exposed as a clumsy hoax in 1956.

In his book Beardmore (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018), Douglas Hunter unravels the complex case and shows how power can be exercised across professional networks in ways that are hostile to arriving at the truth.

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