eugyppius

What did she & her students do? They decided this document was an old forgery. No arguments or anything. Just: "It's fake." She says it, her students say it, now everyone says it.

They got colleagues responsible for standard reference works in the field (indices & registers that track things like papyri and give them numbers) to agree that it was a forgery so now this is established opinion.

A whole source, which is surely authentic, that nobody can use, because of the vanity of some wahman and her students.

The reason you can get away with being a total idiot in that world, is that academia functions like a cartel, or a cabal. It is a closed community of unremarkable dim people who cultivate a false facade of knowledge by promoating each other's work.

If you are well networked and take part in the favour-trading economy, everything you do will be praised, regardless of how shite it is. I know of people who are so incapable, they have had to stoop to open plagiarism, and still they are protected.

In this world of incapable people, all research must happens within the confines of an all-protecting consensus. You don't want to disagree with anyone else. So the only arguments that get made are limp, empty assertions that ultimately mean nothing.

Also, everyone polices the boundaries of their stupid little postage-stamp subfields. They don't want to contend with others who might have rival interpretations. This explains a powerful drive of many involved, to keep everything as uninteresting as possible.

Almost all publications that happen in the Anglophone world are done to secure the PhD, an academic appointment or (in America) tenure. The vast majority of books and articles are thus uninspired pro forma exercises done for overtly career purposes.