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t1_j8yojxj wrote

>Rey said that when he first brought up the project at international conferences no one believed him. “Everyone basically told me, ‘Oh no you’re making it up you’re wasting your time you’re wasting British Museum UK government funding’ – that’s what they were telling me,” he said.

That seems . . . odd. No one believed him? It seems like it would be very hard to get away with falsifying findings like this, and to not get away with it would be instant professional suicide. And to effectively and publicly accuse someone of fraud seems pretty close to libel/slander.

Strange. Probably I am missing something. At any rate, this is really cool and just goes to show that sometimes even the oldest and best known sites can still teach us new things.

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t1_j8yrjq6 wrote

I mean all throughout the history of science, new discoveries were often mocked and ridiculed by contemporaries.

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t1_j8ytuqf wrote

Yes, but it's still a rather strange statement, at least in my opinion as an ancient historian who digs in the Middle East. It's hardly uncommon for Mesopotamian archaeologists to uncover new temples and palaces, and many are known from texts but have not yet been found. The entire point of conferences like ASOR and ICAANE is the dissemination of new archaeological and historical discoveries.

Perhaps he meant that people believed that the damage to the site from slipshod excavations in the late 1800s and early 1900s and the more recent looting precluded the discovery of more monumental architecture.

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t1_j938igi wrote

After spending time around some archaeologists, actual archeology is only like the 3rd most important thing for them. Right behind arguing and drinking.

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t1_j8ysn99 wrote

While this is true, I find it especially interesting when it comes to archaeology. Drawing conclusions from material remains that are thousands of years old seems to be a shaky business, it doesn't make sense to be so stubborn about new discoveries.

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t1_j8zcxc5 wrote

Often probably not. It did happen but often isn't really correct. Especially given the totality of scientific discoveries that have occurred and still occur.

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t1_j8yxgsz wrote

Yeah, this is kinda weird without more context. Who exactly said what and when? Was this before or after the official discovery of the temple last year?

The article very quickly moves past that to the actual findings, which is nice. Kinda like it was written by two people, one with the controversial first paragraph, then the rest as facts and findings.

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t1_j91bkh1 wrote

Have you ever heard the Tragedy of Galileo Galilei?

It's not a story the church would tell you.

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