CAPTION
Posted on 03/19/2018 6:05:15 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A famed archaeologist well-known for discovering the sprawling 9,000-year-old settlement in Turkey called Çatalhöyük seems to have faked several of his ancient findings and may have run a "forger's workshop" of sorts, one researcher says.
James Mellaart, who died in 2012, created some of the "ancient" murals at Çatalhöyük that he supposedly discovered; he also forged documents recording inscriptions that were found at Beyköy, a village in Turkey, said geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger, president of the Luwian Studies Foundation. Zangger examined Mellaart's apartment in London between Feb. 24 and 27, finding "prototypes," as Zangger calls them, of murals and inscriptions that Mellaart had claimed were real...
In a note that Zangger found in the apartment, Mellaart wrote that, should the Beyköy inscriptions not be fully published before his death, researchers should publish them for him. Zangger, along with Fred Woudhuizen, an independent researcher, took up the project and published details about one lengthy inscription in December, in the journal Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. That inscription supposedly dates back 3,200 years and tells of a Trojan prince named Muksus. Some scholars suspected it could be a forgery.
It now appears that many, if not all, of the unpublished inscriptions are forgeries, Zangger said, noting that he can't be totally certain that the inscription published in December was completely made up. The documents found in Mellaart's apartment show that far from being unable to read Luwian, Mellaart was skilled in the ancient language, Zangger said.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
CAPTION
;)
The land of Mordor.
Dr. Brian Williams was his thesis advisor.
A Weaver’s View of the Çatal Hüyük Controversy
Marla Mallett: Textiles | August/September 1990 | Marla Mallett
Posted on 08/25/2006 12:32:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1689685/posts
Dr Malarkey, James Mellaart..
In my humble observation, however, every branch of science is populated by fallible human beings as subject to error and temptation as even a fool like me.
His science consists of...
Formulate a hypothesis
Accumulate data
Test the hypothesis
Change the data to fit the hypothesis
Publish and prosper
every branch of science is populated by fallible human beings
Q12: Is there any truth in the rumour that scholars have fabricated or falsified evidence in order to disprove CoD?
https://www.centuries.co.uk/faq.htm#q12
[snip] The worst case, evidently one of sheer fabrication, appeared in a review of CoD by James Mellaart (1991/2), a famous archaeologist and, until recently, a lecturer at University College London. While he made some favourable comments, he claimed to have access to an unpublished cuneiform text which gives a list of synchronisms between Lydia (a kingdom in western Turkey in classical times) and Assyria, running back 21 generations from the 7th century BC through to the Late Bronze Age. According to Mellaart it confirmed the conventional chronology and made “short shrift” of our model. Apparently some scholars were taken in and rejoiced at our defeat. Alan Millard of Liverpool University, a noted expert on Near Eastern languages, praised Mellaart’s review as “appropriately negative” (1994, 27).
Quite incredibly, Mellaart has never produced any evidence that such a unique text exists, outside his imagination. Despite his best efforts, Professor David Lewis, an eminent epigraphist at Oxford, could find no trace of such a tablet. Other scholars, such as cuneiform expert Professor David Hawkins of the School of Oriental and African Studies, are confident that the text is simply not real. With evident embarassment, the editor of the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, which had carried Mellaart’s review, published a note, alongside letters from ourselves (James & Kokkinos 1992/3) and Lewis, stating that Mellaart’s “alleged documents... should not be cited as valid source material.” (Gibson 1992/3, 82). And there this extraordinary episode ended. Mellaart does not appear to have mentioned his tablet since. [/snip]
https://www.centuries.co.uk/reply4.htm
Letter, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 12 (1992/3), p. 80.
Dear Sir,
Regarding James Mellaart’s review of Centuries of Darkness in BAIAS 11 (1991-2), while it contains several constructive comments, we note that the key evidence which he adduces against our case comes from two unpublished texts: an Arzawan document referred to as the ‘Beyköy Text’, and a letter of Assurbanipal to ‘Ardu, king of Arzawa’. The information claimed to be recorded in them we find little short of fantastic. For example, that Assurbanipal should have written a letter to the king of Lydia (=Arzawa!), listing the latter’s 21 ancestors with regnal years and detailed synchronisms with Assyria, seems far-fetched, to say the least.
Your reviewer states that translations of these texts, by A. Goetze and E. I. Gordon respectively, are “in press”, but fails to specify where. Since Goetze and Gordon died in the early 1970s, both these documents must have awaited publication for a remarkably long time. Further, we find it extraordinary that no cuneiform expert we have consulted has heard of such discoveries. It is with regret that we have to point out that crucial evidence of this kind must always be accessible by some means before it is used as a basis for passing judgement on someone’s work. We hope that no ramifications will arise from Mellaart’s “vital material for chronology” - such uncorroborated citations merely muddy the waters of scholarship.
PETER JAMES AND NIKOS KOKKINOS
Zangger got taken in, which especially ticks me off, since he’s a fan favorite (me being the fan).
Rediscovered Luwian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions from Western Asia Minor
by Eberhard Zangger and Fred Woudhuizen
https://www.academia.edu/35419417/Rediscovered_Luwian_Hieroglyphic_Inscriptions_from_Western_Asia_Minor
TALANTA – Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historic Society, 2018
The estate of the British prehistorian James Mellaart (1925–2012) contained Mellaart’s tracing of several Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions, including a particular prominent one that was originally drawn by the French archaeologist Georges Perrot in 1878. In search of building materials, peasants in the village of Beyköy, approximately 34 kilometers north of Afyonkarahisar in western Turkey, had retrieved a number of stones from the ground. Together they make up a frieze 29 meters in length and about 35 centimeters in height. Not yet able to read the symbols, Perrot drew the stones in the wrong sequence. After Perrot had recorded the inscription, the villagers installed the stones into the foundation of a newly-built mosque. When Luwian hieroglyphic was deciphered, Perrot’s drawing was meant to be published within the framework of a joint Turkish/US-American research project focusing on thus far unpublished documents that had come into the possession of the Ottoman government during the 19th century. The Turkish archaeologist Ulu€ Bahad?r Alk?m produced a preliminary interpretation of the contents and established the correct sequence of the stones shortly before he died in 1981. – The Beyköy inscription contains 50 phrases and is thus the longest known Bronze Age hieroglyphic document. It outranks by far any documents known from western Anatolia. The inscription was commissioned by great king Kupantakuruntas of Mira. It commemorates his deeds, and in so doing provides a detailed account of his realm and conquests. The text dates back to the upheavals of the Sea Peoples, ca. 1190–1180 BC. It relates the maritime conquests in the eastern Mediterranean under the command of great prince Muksus from the Troad. The western Anatolian naval forces proceeded all the way to Ashkelon in southern Palestine, bordering on Egypt. The memory of this endeavor was preserved in Greek literary tradition in the form of the legendary tales about Mopsos. In short, the Luwian hieroglyphic text from Beyköy gives us a fascinating insight into the history of a region and a period which has thus far been shrouded in darkness. It is reproduced and discussed here together with three more substantial Luwian hieroglyphic documents and four fragments from Mellaart’s estate.
Without the Philosophers Stone their efforts were fruitless.
Didja ever read “Crack in the Cosmic Egg”?
His thesis is that when enough people focus their minds on something, undiscovered aspect of reality can come into being. I thought at the time I read it that alchemy itself disproved his entire argument.
No, I never read it. However I have been fascinated by the serendipity of when one discovery happens somewhere in the world similar ones happen elsewhere with no possible connection or even more scientifically drama with “quantum entanglement”.
I C W U D T.
p
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