James Mellaart

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James Mellaart

James Mellaart (born November 14, 1925 in London ; † July 29, 2012 ) was a British prehistorian who was best known for his work on the Neolithic tell of Çatalhöyük in Turkey .

Life

Mellaart studied Egyptology in Leiden and London. In the early 1950s he received a grant for archaeological field research in Anatolia . He traveled the Anatolian highlands for two years, learned the Turkish language , made notes and made sketches. He learned from the locals how to identify possible sites. He collected isolated finds in order to be able to determine the age of the respective upper settlement layer. From the mid-1950s he taught at Istanbul University . He was able to find a position as Assistant Director of the British Institute of Archeology in Ankara and was involved in excavations in the Middle East. Excavations under Seton Lloyd in Beycesultan are worth mentioning .

In 1957 he learned about finds near the city of Burdur through conversations with locals . On site he found a cultural hill with Chalcolithic finds that had already been excavated by black graves . He acquired the excavation license and first found a Chalcolithic settlement and, during his excavations, which lasted until 1961, a Neolithic town -like settlement known as Hacılar .

In 1961, with the assistance of his Turkish wife, Mellaart began excavations in the 8,000-10,000 year old Çatalhöyük, which he directed until the mid-1960s. In 1964 he began to teach Anatolian archeology at the Institute of Archeology at the University of London after his excavation permit had been revoked in connection with the Dorak affair . In 1980 he was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .

In 2005 Mellaart withdrew from teaching. He lived in north London with his wife.

Much of the controversial Beyköy texts come from the estate of James Mellaart , the content of which was partially published by Eberhard Zangger and Fred Woudhuizen at the end of 2017 . At the beginning of 2018, Zangger and Mellaart's son published the result of an investigation, according to which Mellaart had invented extensive falsifications to justify his theses. After examining the deceased's apartment, Zangger discovered that Mellaart had forged the so-called “reconstructed” wall paintings of Çatalhöyük, which had been presented long after the excavations had ended, and had invented translations of allegedly cuneiform documents.

Publications (selection)

  • Anatolian Chronology in the Early and Middle Bronze Age , in: Anatolian Studies 7 (1957) 55-88.
  • Early Cultures of the South Anatolian Plateau. The Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages in the Konya Plain , in: Anatolian Studies 13 (1963) 199-236.
  • The Earliest Settlements in Western Asia From the Nineth to the Fifth Millennium BC , Cambridge 1967.
  • Çatalhöyük. A Neolithic Town in Anatolia , McGraw-Hill, New York 1967. ( digitized version )
    • German title: Çatal Hüyük. City from the Stone Age , 2nd edition, Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1973. ISBN 3-7857-0034-2
  • Excavations at Hacilar , Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1970.

literature

  • Kenneth Pearson & Patricia Connor: The Dorak Affair. Treasures, smugglers, journalists. Zsolnay, Vienna, Hamburg 1968
  • Michael Balter: The Goddess and the Bull. Çatalhöyük: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. Free Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-7432-4360-9 ; Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek (CA) 2006, ISBN 1-59874-069-5
  • Ian Hodder: James Mellaart, 1925–2012 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy . tape XIV , 2015, p. 411-420 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Dora Jane Hamblin: Turkey - Land of Living Legends. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1975, ISBN 3-404-25012-5 , p. 168.
  3. ↑ Dora Jane Hamblin: Turkey - Land of Living Legends. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1975, ISBN 3-404-25012-5 , p. 169.
  4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 7, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Archaeologist unmasked Scinexxcom March 14, 2018.
  6. ↑ British prehistorian forged documents all his life. Luwian Studies, March 1, 2018, accessed April 7, 2018 (PDF, 156 KB).
  7. ^ Ashley Cowie, The Posthumous Disgrace of the Dark Master of Archaeological Hoaxes. In: Ancient Origins. March 13, 2018, accessed August 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Mellaart, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British prehistorian
DATE OF BIRTH November 14, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 2012