Press Review

An amazing discovery

Libres Nouvelles d’Alsace (10 September 2001)

Following the decision made to build a housing estate, a mechanical shovel reveals what its operator first thought was the stele of a grave. In fact, it might be an ancient writing tablet.

Les Chanteroels, preventive samplings

Archeography – Libres Nouvelles d’Alsace (3 October 2001)

The preventive samplings carried out by the archeological service led to the discovery of twenty or so new tablets. Most of them show two types of unfamiliar writings, which apparently are not linked to one another. Cursive or ideographical, always engraved and raised on granite or sandstone plates, they are exceptionally well preserved despite some cracks. The impending arrival of many specialists has already been announced. To be continued…

Work suspended at «Les Chanteroels»

Archeology – Libres Nouvelles d’Alsace (10 October 2001)

According to the French Department of Culture, the suspension of the building site is now clearly being examined. Local authorities are thinking of canceling the planning permission or possibly modifying the land-use plan, to the great displeasure of those who have already bought plots of land.

The tablets: their well-preserved secret

Libres Nouvelles d’Alsace

Specialists from all over the world are studying the discovery. So far, no one has been able to decipher the inscriptions covering the mysterious tablets. The exegetes are perplexed about the meaning of these signs whose origins are still undateable. Some are led to think that the discovery is clearly linked to other monuments existing in Alsace.

Art and Language
James Brayes and Jacques Dupuy at the old slaughterhouses

James Brayes’s work is known for what it “shows” on writing – what he calls “plastic poetry”. jacques Dupuy spent two months of manual work, ten hours a day, perched on 8-meter high scaffoldings to cover walls, floors and ceilings of the old slaughterhouses with white chalk. The sight is striking when entering the hall. Signs, icons and other emoticons that might have escaped from the memory of giant humanoid computers, create an enchanting and breathtaking sidereal space. “The walls were initially black whispers Dupuy, beaming. I understood right off the bat that this place would give me the opportunity to gather all my past urban experiences of the city nights in a sort of monstrous intimacy, in one single momentum. The sentences, the atmosphere linked to the suffering of the human condition and the idea of the fourteen stations had been haunting me for a long time. So, as soon as I saw the room, the poem of Brayes came to me almost instantly.”

From the pagan wall to the tablets of Chanteroels

Libres Nouvelles d’Alsace (December 18th 2001)

Alsace was already known for its archeological emblematic enigma: the pagan wall of the Mount Sainte-Odile. The hypotheses as regards the function and, mostly, the dating of this wall have been fueling debates for more than two centuries. The discovery of the tablets on the “Chanteroels” site, located approximately ten kilometeres as the crow flies from the Mount Sainte-Odile, has added on to the existing mystery. Is there a link between the two sites? It doesn’t seem so. Perhaps the investigations will enlighten us on the subject. Meanwhile, archeologists, archeographs and philologists from all over the world sometimes contradict one another when they cross paths on the site. The research continues to fuel the craziest interpretations (Atlantis, an extraterrestrial civilization…), but all this has already been heard of. Consequently, it is too early to state tangible truths. Meanwhile, the guest houses of the valley are always full. Therefore, somebody somewhere will be happy about it, for sure. As announced in the 10 October 2001 issue of our newspaper, the Chanteroels construction site was been suspended while waiting for a decision related to the discovery of the tablets. For the commune, the question was: what will become of the housing estate if the building permits happen to be taken away for the proper development of the dig? These fears were justified. On December 7th, the decision made by the highest authorities of the state came out: the permits have been cancelled for the entire surface area of the housing estate. An alteration of the land-use plan is now being undertaken. Anger is rising on the part of the purchasers of the plots, who do not want to hear anything about moving the construction site somewhere else. To be continued…