Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.
The Phaistos disc is a characteristic example of what tends to happen on Wikipedia. If there are questions of authenticity, the page will say there was some debate, but scholarly consensus has aligned in favor of the item's authenticity. When that's not the conclusion to be found in the papers cited. I don't know why the articles are written with such a bias toward finding things authentic. In fact, there are almost no fakes in Wikipedia, only occasional (amateur) hoaxes. The Phaistos disc is ugly, anomalous, and egregious. I don't know how these scholars can look at it without laughing. I've read the papers weakly arguing it's genuine. I don't get it at all. Such an item should come with exceptional, or at least the usual, proof of verity.
It was excavated by a professional archeologist in a datable context (being amongst 'garbage' under a layer of debris caused by a known earthquake, in a long-buried cellar of a palace). To assert its inauthenticity as an ancient artifact, one would have to assume that the archeologist deliberately fasified his excavation records. This is of course possible.
Its relative crudity is evident, but let's remember that it was apparently discarded. (I conjecture that it was a practice piece.)
It appears less anomalous now than when it was discovered, because subsequently other, presumably authentic, artifacts of the culture have been found with similar features: carvings of some of the same symbols, jewellery with the same design of an inward spiral of (different-script) symbols.
Against that, there is a much later (Etruscan) object which it rather resembles, and which the archaeologist must already have been familiar with.
In fact stamps of the same symbols. There are "shield" and "rosette" stamps on pottery, with 8 petals and 7, uh, shield-nubs, just like on the disk. And there is the "comb", which although drawn with 6 teeth on each side instead of 4, still has these two comb-like parts joined by a T-shaped handle. Does such a sign crop up by chance, is the corpus of decorative Minoan marks big enough for that kind of selection bias in noticing similarity? I don't think so: I haven't seen a gradient of progressively less similar comb-like marks, only these two closely matching ones, like matching signatures. Though, of course, I'm not being shown all the failed near-matches that may for all I know exist. But I'll assume there aren't any, which makes these "combs" non-coincidental and persuasive. Ah, but of course there are 40 or so distinctive signs, which makes 40 opportunities for such a coincidence ... Card Zero (talk)19:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the disc they were stamps (which I assumed everybody knows), on the other artifacts they were carved (or engraved), which I deliberately indicated. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.209.45 (talk) 23:18, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, the famous Cretan motifs of goatse, screwdriver, 8-ball rack, kewpie doll, kewpie doll with mohawk, "Keep on truckin'" guy, and chocolate chip cookie. Okay, maybe I spoke a bit oversure. I hadn't seen those other stamped goods. The parallels aren't cased closed, either. Now the James ossuary, those underworn letters look like they were made by somebody who learned modern Hebrew script in kindergarten.
We have articles on some famous fakes/forgeries that were later revealed: Piltdown Man, Cardiff Giant, etc. Certainly, many archaeologists have had their work scrutinized (perhaps excessively) because it was thought that their findings were in error. For example, any New World sites that purport to be earlier than about 13,000 years old go through very public criticism because earlier dates go against entrenched wisdom. See here for a particular example. I don't think anyone claims those were fakes, though. There are many archaeological ideas that are... unlikely (Solutrean hypothesis) or not provable (Aquatic ape hypothesis), but like in every other science, bad ideas are not nearly so bad as bad data. Matt Deres (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
James Mellaart: After his death, it was discovered that Mellaart had forged many of his "finds", including murals and inscriptions used to discover the Çatalhöyük site.
Lady of Elche has a section on Contentions of forgery.
I have been a Northern Californian for 52 years and Drake's Plate of Brass has been a source of both controversy and amusement for a very long time. The self-published book industry has benefitted greatly, and it has contributed to tour guide lore. Accepted as genuine by prominent academics half a century ago, its authenticity has been debunked, and it is now seen as a practical joke that got out of control.
I've just been reading the updated edition of Turin Shroud by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince. A most fascinating read. They demolish the theory that it's the burial shroud of Jesus (which in itself was disproved by the 1988 carbon dating which showed the age of the cloth to be 1200 years too young); they demonstrate that it's a 15th-century forgery using what is essentially a photographic technique perfected by Leonardo da Vinci; they maintain, quite credibly, that the face on the shroud is none other than Leonardo himself; they prove that the face and the body belong to different people (and the body seems to be of a man of height 6 feet 8 inches) and were very crudely pushed together. They're on slightly shakier ground when they talk about modern-day scientists and their testing and their (so the authors claim, incorrect) conclusions about the unexplained unique characteristics of the image; but many of them seem to be devout Christians and believers of the Jesus theory (not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but it doesn't always sit comfortably with disinterested scientific accuracy, particularly when they maintain those beliefs in the face of the evidence that they themselves and their fellow scientists have discovered that flies in the face of such a belief). So much more engrossing stuff. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]18:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I remembered something about Howard Carter; the article says his misdeeds were to do with genuine artifacts, stealing them.
