James Mellaart was a British archaeologist, educator, and author. He discovered the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in 1958 in central Turkey and then dug it between 1961-1965, revealing that it was one of the world’s first urban centres.
Background
Ethnicity:
His father was Dutch, and his mother was from Northern Ireland.
James Mellaart was born on November 14, 1925 in London, United Kingdom. He was the son of J. H. J. Mellaart, a specialist in fine art, and A. D. Van Der Beek.
Education
James Mellaart received his Bachelor of Arts in ancient history and Egyptology (with honors) in 1951 from the University College in London.
In 1951 James Mellaart began to direct excavations on the sites in Turkey with the assistance of his Turkish-born wife Arlette, who was the secretary of BIAA. He helped to identify the "champagne-glass" pottery of western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age, which in 1954 led to the discovery of Beycesultan. After that expedition's completion in 1959, he helped to publish its results.
Mellaart was an assistant director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (BIAA). In 1964 he began to lecture in Anatolian archaeology at the University of London.
In 1958 Mellaart became the archaeologist who discovered the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey and who then dug it between 1961-1965, revealing that it was one of the world’s first urban centres. He found a large number of richly furnished buildings with reliefs, bull-horn installations and elaborate narrative wall paintings that shocked the archaeological world because such impressive art had not been found previously in the Near East.
According to one of Mellaart's theories, Çatalhöyük was a prominent place of mother goddess worship. However, many other archaeologists did not agree with him, and the dispute created a controversy. Mellaart was even accused of making up at least some of the mythological stories he presented as genuine. The furor caused the Turkish government to close up the site. The site was unattended for the next 30 years until excavations were begun anew in the 1990s.
James Mellaart went on to work as a lecturer in Anatolian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London until 1991. His later career was dogged by controversy.
In 2005, Mellaart retired from teaching and lived in North London.
After his death it was discovered that he had forged many of his "finds", including murals and inscriptions used to discover the Çatalhöyük site.