Today, Eibelstadt is a quaint town with vineries and grass carpets.
Once, it was the land of the lying stones.
But for all his accomplishments, there were many who despised the doctors rise to fame.
The diggers began to deliver the seemingly spectacular fossils to him, and Beringer was immediately enraptured.
Little did he know that these would later come to be known as Lugensteine.
The fossils were perceptibly extraordinary, even to Beringer.
Rocks of shell limestone or the Middle Triassic Muschelkalk are found in the land of Eibelstadt even today.
But these iconoliths were different.
In the fossils that displayed remnants of a skeletal structure, the anatomy was evidently incorrect.
The book contained 21 plates, depicting 204 specimens.
Though written in Latin, it was later translated by Melvin E. Jahn and Daniel J. Woolf in English.
Something had changed, but what?
As years have passed, the suspense of the story has been attributed to different anecdotes.
Some suggested that it were his students who pranked the professor.
The incident affected the pranksters as well.
While Roderick had to leave Wurzburg, Eckhart was unable to finish his scholarship.
The incident triggered the opening of the Lugensteine Association in Germany devoted solely to fossil fakery.
Of the over 2,000 stones that Beringer discovered, around 600 were distributed across England, Germany and Austria.
All of these are originals, boasting an ironic display of forgery for the world to see even today.
