“skeptical about your claim”
Sometimes I think there is a lot of potential doctoral thesis behind some of the articles I read. Especially the outlandishly “factual” ones that cannot possibly have any basis in fact at all. This is one of those. I smell a doctoral thesis brewing... even though I might be incorrect in assuming so.
Another poster said that he “smelled grant money” which sums it up pretty good as well.
I see the scheme—publish some baseless articles, then use those articles to support a doctoral thesis. Very clever.
I’m in Biblical Studies. Some portions of the field have been operating this way for several lifetimes.
Eventually one has such an impressive raft of authorities to back up garbage that it isn’t worth anyone’s bother to point out that the emperor has no clothes. At least it helps to actually demonstrate how myths can arise over several generations, even if it doesn’t tell us too much about ancient literature.