In 1889, the London newspaper Pall Mall Gazette published a sensational article concerning the discovery of giant human bones in neighboring France.
“A strange discovery was made in Vimoutiers in the Orne department by a peasant living in the village of Cutesson. He was digging in his field when suddenly the ground collapsed and he fell into a hole 3 meters deep.
“The peasant accidentally set fire to an underground chamber whose existence was not previously suspected. During the inspection, a number of human bones, partly fossilized, were found in the adjacent circular vault.
“The bones are exceptionally large and appear to belong to a race with gigantic stature and large body width. In fact, those who investigated the matter at the site believe that the bodies must have been buried at this burial site at a very long time ago.
“Further research was temporarily interrupted by subsidence of other plots. It does not seem at all unlikely that this accident will produce some extremely interesting discoveries.”
According to Paul Brown z Single discoveriesat the tip of the news article it was stated that excavations in the realm had finally been temporarily halted as a consequence of subsidence.
The story immediately became widely circulated and was published in other British newspapers. This was written about in France itself; in fact, the French press was simply not as read world wide because the British press.
In particular, in French newspapers these finds were called “osssements humains d'une taille étonnante” (“human bones of surprisingly large size”) and likewise indicated some details that weren’t reported in British newspapers. For example, the underground chamber where the skeletons were positioned was so large that two peasant horses fell into the opening.
An 18-meter long tunnel was also described, which led from the underground chamber to a different, even larger, underground room.
One of the articles about this discovery, published within the French newspaper La Petit Presse, ended with the next message: “We are glad that we can give archaeologists and antiquarians a new opportunity to present their observations and expand their specialist knowledge. The floor is open to scientists!”
But then there was dead silence. No newspaper, neither French, British nor otherwise, wrote a single word about this sensational discovery. Researchers searched every possible newspaper archive from that time and beyond, but nowhere else did they find any mention of the giant human bones from Vimoutier.
But articles have been published about similar finds of giant human bones, but in other places in France.
In June 1890, Mr. Lapouge discovered human bone fragments of “probably the most abnormal size” in the prehistoric cemetery of Castelnau, near Montpellier, in the south of France, according to the London Globe.
Lapouge calculated that the bones belonged to a man 3.3 meters (11 ft) tall, a true giant. It was also pointed out that since ancient times the entire Castelnau valley was called by the villagers as the place where the “cave of the giants” is positioned.
Lapouge published an article and photos of his findings in the French journal La Nature. From there, the story of “The Giants of Castelnau” was published in numerous newspapers and magazines around the world, including the New York Times and Popular Science News.
And traditionally, this was also the last mention in the press about these strange finds. After that, no one wrote or mentioned them anymore.
In 1894, newspapers reported that workers excavating a reservoir in Montpellier had found “a set of human skulls of gigantic size” measuring 28, 31 and 32 inches in circumference. The skull circumference of an average adult male is 22.5 inches.
“These relics were sent to the Academy of Paris, and one among the scientists stated that they belonged to a race of individuals between 3 and 4.5 meters tall,” the papers wrote.
This spot gave the impression to be near where Mr. Lapouge was digging. Anyway, it's the identical area of Montpellier. Perhaps each bones are related to the cave of the giants itself, about which legends were created by the inhabitants of the Castelnau valley?
As the reader can easily guess, there may be currently no details about these skulls. Did they find yourself on the Academy of Paris and unknowingly hide somewhere within the warehouses? Or perhaps they deliberately hide them eternally from the eyes of all outsiders?
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