Furuli's entire purpose is just to be the Society's pet "scholar" whom they can point to whenever needed, to say, "See! There's a bonified book-learned person out there who agrees with us!" He provides a facade of there being "disagreement" in the archaeological world. In reality the only disagreement comes from Furuli himself, but the Society doesn't mention him by name, so they can just cite "some scholars" and make the R&F think there's this serious rift in the academic community about the date of Babylon's destruction.
It's such a laughable sham.