How Much of the "Research" at Catalhoyuk was Faked?

3/12/2018

If you're an archaeologist, you need to read this article (and this) about accusations that the late James Mellaart faked portions of his research on the Neolithic/Chalcolithic settlement of Catalhoyuk. While I'm not a specialist in the area or the time period, I've covered the site briefly in introductory classes. To hear that some of what we "know" about the site may be based on fabricated "evidence" is incredibly disappointing.

I'm sure we'll learn more about this story as people who work in the region weigh in.

An artists's conception of Catalhoyuk.

5 Comments

Lewis Borck link

3/13/2018 04:29:30 am

I saw this yesterday and was quite disappointed, both in the possibility that Cayalhoyuk had a Frank Hibben (a la Sandia man) working there, but even more so in a lot of ways by the way this was pushed forward. While the critique might be legitimate, it's hard to read this as anything except for a press release for Zangger, since they didn't apparently run this by any other expert. Hodder is hardly the only person they could have asked to peer review Zangger's thoughts. Anyways, hopefully the truth will come out.

Bob Jase

3/13/2018 05:10:41 pm

Damn.

Stuart Fiedel

3/16/2018 09:17:05 am

Old news... Check this out:
http://www.marlamallett.com/chupdate.htm

The Dutch philologists should never have believed the story about Mellaart's lost Luwian inscription.

jaap

3/27/2018 03:28:56 pm

Just my thinking, Stuart! Could Mellaart have made up the entire inscription? No hope of unearthing the mosk!
And yes, it seems possible, even plausable, as it reads just what we would have expected (too much so!).
So here we have a con-Luwian that has been extentially used by philogists to make all sorts of irrelevant points about IE ...
Staggering! What these English spies get up to ...

Stuart Fiedel

3/31/2018 01:10:05 pm

On the bright side: There are real Neolithic murals at Catal Hoyuk, and there's no reason to think Mellaart could have created them, so the photographed examples can be trusted. On the other hand, those represented only by drawings in his publications might be phony. It would be useful for Ian Hodder and his team to publish a list of field-verified murals based on their recent excavations.

How Much of the "Research" at Catalhoyuk was Faked?

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