Anatomy of a content scraper acct:

No #attribution for the photo nor the conclusions. Loads of followers. No details that allow people to easily find further info. Also happens to be a very new acct to have built that many followers so soon.

Used http://Tineye.com  to do a reverse image search. It got few trustworthy hits. I chose this one because at least it was an established newspaper: https://www.repubblica.it/2007/11/sezioni/scienza_e_tecnologia/sciamana-beluchistan/sciamana-beluchistan/sciamana-beluchistan.html

Using Google Translate, I get the name of a quoted scholar, Lorenzo Costantini, who was part of an Italian team that worked on this dig with the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research (ICAR). https://www.researchgate.net/institution/Iranian_Centre_for_Archaeological_Research

Still haven't found any published paper. Nor where the claim it was covered in gold came from. But maybe I'm reading too quickly.

Regardless, I'm just trying to make the point again that no one, especially academics, should be following and RTing these garbage content-thieving accts. They don't provide credit or context & often misinform.

Their sole purpose is to use other people's work, without permission or credit, to make money. It may not be immediately apparent. But it usually turns up through cross-promotion or the opening of a webstore, or the selling of their Twitter following. #Attribution

p.s. Yes, I skimmed too quickly. Google Translate of that article said the artificial eye was largely made of bitumen paste but "There are traces of very thin gold foil, which forms the veins of the eye ".

Another thing to beware of with content scraping, attribution-burying viral accts is that they can be used as Trojan Horses for ideologies. I was just reminded of that by something someone RT'd into my TL just now. https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2018/08/how-architecture-themed-twitter-accounts-became-magnet-white