Archaeological fakes and forgeries in Turkey

Abstract

In this paper we present discussions on archaeological authenticity in Turkey, advanced both from scholarly as well as popular scientific point of views. In Turkey in the last five years a recent public debate has become on previously inconspicuous "archaeological fakes". The problem was previously known, but not permanently entered in scientific research. It will probably still be a long way to go until Turkish archaeologists to deal with this matter in scientific terms with it and accept it as an important study area. Although Turkey is a key country for both originals, as well as for forgery production, we known little about which materials should be categorized as replicas or fakes, which objects were classified, what materials were faked, why and by whom.

A multi‐analytical approach to unmask two Etruscan‐Corinthian fake vases: A contribution to the illicit trafficking of cultural goods

“…The aim of this work is to provide authentication tools and a database for this type of fake archaeological artefacts, supporting historical‐artistic studies, by a non‐destructive and micro‐destructive analytical approach, requisite in both forensic and cultural heritage studies, through an easily reproducible routine and low‐cost protocol. In fact, although in the literature there is a plethora of works on the characterization of this type of objects from archaeological context, 13–17 there are not exhaustive bibliographic references to support a study aimed at the recognition of fakes, even if there is a growing attention of the scientific community for this phenomenon in recent years 11,18–25 …”