Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Near East

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[edit] Suggestions

This looks like a great project! One thing I wondered whether it would be worth putting in the guidelines- standardise the use of "Orient" and "Middle East" to "Near East", wherever possible. There seems to be some move towards that already and almost all the people who work in the field now call it Near East rather than the alternatives. --G Rutter 21:00, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

true! see also Talk:Chronology of the Ancient Orient. There should be redirects though. I am inserting this into the guidelines. dab 13:34, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Do people think it's worth creating a Near Eastern archaeology category as a sub-cat of Archaeology? Another thing I thought this project could usefully do would be to have a "most wanted articles" section - we could transfer them across to the Wikipedia most wanted page as well. If people think this is a good idea I'll start us off with: American Schools of Oriental Research. --G Rutter 16:55, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

good idea. I'm creating Category:Ancient Near East, so far consisting only of sub- and super-categories. And, by all means, create a Todo-list, and a most-wanted-list! [[User:Dbachmann|dab (T) ]] 17:12, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't have any suggestions at the moment, but I'd like to help with this project. --Americist 19:21, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

I would like to help with this project, if someone could contact me about it, that would be great!--Moosh88 19:50, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

It would certainly be interesting to add some articles on archaeological sites of the ANE (I can offer some). Also, what about the problem of chronology? Cynsanity 18:45, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Standardizing spelling really shouldn't look to Transliterating Cuneiform Languages for a model. Outside of actual quotations of disputed texts, we should probably be using the standard terms, whether they be transcriptions or Greek/Hebrew forms. Ben 17:32, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Egypt

If Egypt comes under this area, what happens to Nubia ?

[edit] congratulations

I'm a catalan user and ia was looking for some articles related to Assiria. I think this project is absolutely necessay and great, i hope it will remain very active. You should try to expand it to other wikipedias, so all wikis have essential information about ancient near east. You can propose it in village pupms /comunity portals. It would help other wikis to know this project and work together.

[edit] standards of measure

would it be possible to include ancient near eastern standards of measure? Federal Street 12:32, 22 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Improvement drive

A related topic, History of the world is currently a nomination on WP:IDRIVE. Support the article with your vote to improve its quality. --Fenice 14:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles on the Ancient Near East? The Ancient Egypt group have already provides a useful list. I don't know if you've had any FAs, but they would be suitable as well. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 04:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming convention

A Wikipedia: Naming convention is needed for the ancient Near East! --JFK 08:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

On Near East - Middle East - Orient. "Orient" is ambiguous, since it is often (in Britain more often) used for the Far East than the Near East. "Middle East" is not liked by archaeologists because it has a political flavour (not necessarily a good argument against it though?). And it is true that "Near East" is now generally preferred (for instance, the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum a few years ago changed its name to Department of the Ancient Near East). However, it might be pointed out that "Near East" (as also "Middle East") is a Euro-centric term and might in the future come to be considered politically incorrect. Personally I would prefer "South West Asia". The use of this term would necessarily have to exclude Egypt, but Egypt would in my view be better recognised as an advanced culture of Africa - which it is - rather than being lumped together with Eurasia (as if only Eurasia could produce "high civilisations"). User:Shulgi 16:53, 9 December 2006

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] Vault (architecture)

I've imported the 1911 entry for the above article as a base to build the rest of the article upon. I need to check some of the factual accuracy of the historical claims. Firstly:-

"The earliest known example of a vault is a Tunnel vault found under the Sumerian ziggurat at Nippur in Babylonia, ascribed to about 4000 B.C., which was built of burnt bricks cemented with clay mortar.[1] The earliest tunnel vaults in Egypt are those at Requagnah and Denderah, c. 3500 B.C.; these were built in unburnt brick in three rings over passages descending to tombs: in these cases, as the span of the vault was only 6 ft., the bricks constituting the voussoirs were laid flatwise, and adhered sufficiently to those behind to enable the ring to be completed without other support; in the granaries built by Ramesses II., still in part existing behind the Ramesseum, at Thebes, the span was 12 ft., and another system was employed; the lower part of the arch was built in horizontal courses, up to about one-third of the height, and the rings above were inclined back at a slight angle, so that the bricks of each ring, laid flatwise, adhered till the ring was completed, no centering of any kind being required; the vault thus formed was elliptic in section, arising from the method of its construction."

The 4000 B.C. claim seems perhaps too early, but I can't find a different source that says otherwise. Also, there seems no mention of Requagnah at all on google so I think perhaps it is now known by a different name or spelling. Can anyone help? --Mcginnly | Natter 16:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Almost certainly that source operates under the mistaken assumption that the first dynasty began around 4100 BC. Thus it dates those vaults to a few hundred years after 4100. I can't necesarrily find for you the correct date, but I know for a fact that 1) no monumental tombs were built around 3500 and 2) 3500 is possibly still late Naqada I period, and therefore there were no little to no bricks around whatsoever. Thus, that article is really out of date. Thanatosimii 17:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I take it your answer refers to the egyptian dating - do you have any comments on the Sumerian Nippur date (I note the nippur article also refers to arch/vault features, but also references the 1911 britannica and so may be repeating the error). Could anyone take a stab at the Requagnah question? Cheers. --Mcginnly | Natter 18:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabia and Ancient Yemen

Is Yemen included in this wikiproject since Yemen is part of what is called the Middle East? What about other ancient Arabian civilisations such as Nabateans,Dilmun, Thamudic..etc.--Aziz1005 14:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

should be. This falls all under Pre-Islamic Arabia, which doesn't have a dedicated WikiProject and should be considered as falling within the scope of this one. For times later than the 6th century BC, the applicable category is probably Category:History of the Middle East, and not Category:Ancient Near East any more. dab (𒁳) 11:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thorkild Jacobsen

I noticed that wiki had no article for Thorkild Jacobsen and subsequently added one. However, I don't know nearly enough about him (or about Assyriology in general) to make it a good article, so when I discovered this wikiproject I thought I'd mention the stub here! So... mentioned. -Elizabennet | talk 20:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incense Road

The article would benefit if someone versed in the history of the Near East would rate the article on the importance scale. Best Wishes, Havelock the Dane 21:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banana languages

Can this be verified please, sounds like a joke at the moment. Enlil Ninlil 06:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/GeneralxHotlist

Can someone take a look at this list:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/GeneralxHotlist

As you can see the missing articles are:

-- Vedranf 20:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] collaboration of the history projects

Hi, I'm newly appointed coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject History. I was coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject Military History before. My scope is to improve the cooperation among the different history projects andf use the synergy of a common infrastructure to improve article quality. One idea would be to merge small project into a larger wikiproject history with a common infrastructure and the small projects continuing independently as task forces of this project. What are your suggestions? Greetings Wandalstouring 15:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help requested

Anybody here familiar with scholarly disputes related to [[Qumran]? If so, help will be much appreciated at Ancient Qumran: A Virtual Reality Tour. May thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Third Opinion Desperately Needed

I am at an impasse with a new user who has been around for about a week, the main problem is whether or not Template:Notable Rulers of Sumer should be converted into an "infobox style" (upper right hand corner) on the whim of a single new user, or whether it should be left as a "reference box" (centred, appears near bottom of article) as it always has been by the creators of this box since it was created a year ago.

I have been arguing for the latter on the talk page, because the subject matter is a list of all the other wikipedia articles about Sumerian kings; if you are looking at an article about a Sumerian king, these would be solid "see also" material, not something of vital importance to the specific article, like an infobox.

An additional problem is that the majority of the articles are so short as to make all the infoboxes run down the right hand margin, way past the one paragraph of text, which makes them unwieldy and an eyesore.

The new user has summarily brushed aside all these concerns (with legalistic responses like "Templates are under no obligation to be optimized for stubs" while ignoring my other arguments, and this has turned into a 2 man edit war. I very carefully followed procedure and warned hi when he was about to cross 3rr, then when he did I reported it, making sure I stayed under 3RR. The result is I got an admin who couldn't tell what was going on and blocked both of us for 12 hours -- even though I meticulously followed the correct procedure, I was blocked for reporting the other guy's violation. The newbie user is back now and is continuing to singlehandedly redesign the layout of all Sumerian king articles in an awful way without regard to previous editors like me, such as repeatedly inserting parent categories that I have to remove again, etc. so I need help here! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aratta article

Recently several editors, including the above poster, have turned the Aratta article into an Armenian-location-theory free-for-all [6].

It might be a good idea to replace discussions of location for this mythical land with a statement to the effect: that it is, as yet, mythical and there is no obvious or clear "location" for it.

References: WP:POV, WP:RS, WP:Civility.

Sumerophile (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been involved with that article in one form or another since 2005, and the "Armenian location" material there is certainly not recent or new; in fact a look through the article history will show that there was originally much more of it than there is now. All we can do per OR is neutrally reflect what various scholars and schools of thought say about the subject. NPOV means we cannot endorse any one school of thought over the others where they disagree; for example those (who?) saying Aratta could never have existed, over the many other scholars who have offered evidence for where they think it did indeed exist. As usual, any viewpoint is welcome to be added, provided it is properly attributed. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Nobody says Aratta "could never have" existed; it is as-yet unattested and, at this point, exists only in myth. There is also no evidence WP:RS for anyone's theories on where they think it "did indeed exist" - there is no evidence at all. If the Armenian material was removed before, it should be removed again. Sumerophile (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the vast number of scholars who are already reliably sourced as speculating that Aratta = Ararat (many more can and should probably be added if there aren't enough yet) it's pretty hard to justify suppressing the fact that this viewpoint exists simply because it doesn't fit in with your personal POV. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 23:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There are a vast number of scholars that can be reliably sourced as speculating that Aratta is in any number of places, especially if it's their dig site, or their homeland, or someplace they like. And drawing a connection between two words looking somewhat similar across unrelated languages and over 5000 years is linguistically unsubstantiated original research. For the record, I don't have any POV in this matter, and I don't like seeing this POV in the article. Sumerophile (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

"Original research" is really an in-house term we use on wikipedia to describe something that a wikipedian came up with himself, that isn't in any published source... it doesn't apply to claims that are in many published sources, no matter what we editors may think of those claims. I don't have any POV either, but the article doesn't seem to be asserting that any one POV is correct or incorrect. It simply reports what all the significant POVs are and which authors subscribe to them, as it should. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, just because a source is published doesn't make it reliable; there are many off-topic, poorly sourced and fringe publications, as well as generalist books that pass on outdated or incorrect received knowledge. Any POV can be "verified" by not vetting sources. And you don't have to say another POV is incorrect to have a POV-laden article. Sumerophile (talk) 01:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV means we don't take any sides or tell readers what to think about issues that have been controversial or disputed or where there are multiple significant schools of thought among scholars; we simply present all the viewpoints that can be sourced neytrally, and let the reader make up his own mind. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know what NPOV should be, and the Aratta article is full of the Aratta=Ararat POV/Original Research that you mentioned above. Sumerophile (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Once again, it cannot be called "Original Research" (as we use the term here on wikipedia) if it is published, in this case, in multiple scholarly sources on the subject. And it cannot be called POV if it is worded neutrally without endorsing any one view over another in the controversy. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:RS. And a POV is not turned into a NPOV simply by not criticizing other views. Sumerophile (talk) 03:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, criticism of a POV is perfectly admissible too, so long as you can find that specific criticism in a published RS. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, wp:rs, exactly. If everyone cited them, we wouldn't have speculative POV's running around like Aratta=Ararat. Sumerophile (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aryan invasion theory (Europe)

(copied from WikiProject:European History) Anyone fancy having a go bashing this into shape? Without work it's AfD'able, but maybe there's something salvageable there for someone with knowledge on the topic. I leave it to your collective better judgement. Knepflerle (talk) 09:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Has this already been deleted? The title is red linked. Sumerophile (talk) 23:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Appears so! There were a few revisions, it got WP:PROD'ed, then it disappeared. If you want to see the deleted content I think you can get it from any admin, but don't think you're missing much. Knepflerle (talk) 08:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Well not really, I was just wondering :) Sumerophile (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unified Format and Chronology for ANE Rulers

Looking around the various articles in the Ancient Near East project, I note their are a number of different formats for listing the kings/rules. There are also some articles that use the short, middle or long chronology dates or list all dating options for each ruler or mix and match in the same article.

What I am going to suggest is that a single format and chronology choice be chosen for the entire project and then the ruler lists and dates be rationalized to match up accross the board. Naturally, this might involve some debate. :-)

So, as a base proposal, how about choosing the SHORT CHRONOLOGY and a table format, as in the Chronology of the Ancient Near East, of

[edit] Fifth Dynasty of Uruk

Main article: Uruk
Ruler proposed reign Notes
Utu-hegal 2119 BC – 2113 BC

The Chronology page has "Dating Notes" but it can be changed in the interest of commonality.

Well, what do you think? Ploversegg (talk) 01:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg


The short chronology should be standard standard in Wikipedia, so if you see something else, go ahead and change it to short chronology. (But if they list multiple options, it's probably for a reason, so don't change that.)
I'm not sure what table you're refering to. I've put some succession tables on the kings articles, and that's a standard format. Sumerophile (talk) 03:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't say that the Short Cronology is anywhere near the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, but it's a good a choice as any.

It turns out the articles are all over the board on what chronology they use. For example First Babylonian Dynasty uses the long chronology. And List of Kings of Babylon uses mostly the middle chronogy. It would make sense for everyone to work off the same timeline. Ploversegg (talk) 16:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Thank you, Ploversegg, the post-Akkadian dates make much more sense now!
Could you look over a few dates (which I assume you haven't looked at): the reign of Nannia (Nanniya) in the 4th dynasty of Kish (the first table), and the dates of the two eclipses under Shulgi in the Third Dynasty of Ur? Sumerophile (talk) 20:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure, my basic plan is to do a first pass over each dynasty, some of which are still in thr wrong chronology. I'll take a look at the items you pointed out. After I'm done, I'll request a full review. Ploversegg (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

I added some comments to the chronology page. Feel free to look them over. Sumerophile (talk) 23:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hm ... look reasonable. In general, I tried to be conservative so I left in most existing comments like "possibly King Elul(u)mesh of Gutium" for a later review, and didn't try and force dates or linkages for earlier rulers where there was not attestation. I guess all the Notes should be double checked at some point.

Also, I have a number of potential references for the article, but wanted to wait until is settles down a bit to see which ones make the most sense and where. For my next trick, I would like to write a new Principal Sources section from scratch to replace the existing one which looks like it was copied from somewhere, but that's probably a weekend type thing rather than a lunchtime job. :-)

Lastly, I'm uncertain how to handle earlier dynasties. My original thought has been to just have include the range fro which chrono dates are at least semi respecable, say Sargon and beyond (the 4th Dynasty of Kish is marginal, but I guess if you have Sargon, you need to have Ur-Zababa) and let the Sumerian Kings List article handle the earlier stuff. I wonder though if it would be better to have a Pre-Historic section for the old dudes and a Historic section for the currently listed rulers. Any thought? Ploversegg (talk) 23:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)ploveregg

Yeah, the Guti king in the king list begins with an 's' Silulumesh, but I agree it's better just to gather information and sort it out later.
For the earlier dynasties there's a point where we just don't have any more information. The reigns listed on the king list are unreliable, and lacking any other references you have to go by archaeology, which is much more approximate. Ur-Zababa reigned 400 years in the main recension of the king list, or 6 years, or 4+x years, or 131-100 years in other recensions. Lacking anything more concrete I'd just like to put, i.e., mid-24th century for Ur-Zababa. Can we label approximates like that "short chronology", seeing they differ from each other by half centuries?
Sumerophile (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely, like for the Hittite Old Kingdom I dispensed with a couple early sketchy probably mythical rulers and also left out dates for the first two rules for which there appeared to be no real support.

Hm, for the specific case of the 4th Dynasty of Kish I was thinking either 1) take it out or 2) add the first two kings (Puzur-Suen and Ur-Zababa) to the table without dates or 3) add them and take out ALL of the dates since I can't figure out came from or 4) add the two rulers with reigns of 25 and 6 years repectively and set their dates appropriately. What do you think?

As for the bigger question i.e. "mid-24th" etc, given that there is only a 64 year difference between short and middle chrono (and given I don't really believe in the Venus Tablets) it seems weak to even assign a "chronology" to Giglamesh type rulers. Just my humble opinion though. Ploversegg (talk) 01:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

OK check, we shouldn't assign a chronology to approximate dates.
4th Dynasty of Kish - my thoughts are we should keep all the kings together in a Dynasty, even if we can't date them all, but if all we have to go on is Ur-Zababa and the king list we should probably just remove it. Sumerophile (talk) 01:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
This is probably nit-picky, but are Lugal-zage-si's dates correct? Sumerophile (talk) 02:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


Ok ... letsee. Lugal-zage-si ruled for either 25 or 34 years depending on which fragment of the Sumerian Kings List we believe. He is cotemporal with Sargon of Akkad based on http://www.piney.com/BabSarLeg2.html and other versions of that story (which in theory also makes him a cotemporary of Ur-Zababa). And he defeated Urukagina of Lagash and apparently (less clear) defeated Kish (one would assume under Nannia). So, my take is that there are several date choices that are equally valid i.e. 2340-2316, 2341-2316, 2359-2335, and 2360-2335 (using 25 years). My analysis says it should be 2340-2316, but if you prefer another, then afer 5000 years that would be good enough for me. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ploversegg (talk • contribs) 21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

What I was really wondering about, was that LZS and the early Akkadian king reigns weren't listed as ending in the same year as the beginning of the next reign. Sumerophile (talk) 22:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, my sense of the sequence is

1 LZS rules in URUK and in some point in that reign defeats KISH to become the top power in the region

2 Sargon rules in Agade for some years before he completes the process of creating an empire (defeating LZS along the way). In order words, dynasties can start before a city state makes the big time. Consider Babylon, where the dynasty starts 5 kings before Hammurabi make it a major power. So, the first year of Sargon is probably not going to be the last year of LKS unless an iscription turns up that says "on my first day as king I pasted LKS". :-)

Unless, your questions was "Why do some dynasties have each ruler start in the last year of the previous ruler and some do not?" Well, not an expert on that but what I've read is that some people listed a year as belonging to whoever was in charge at the beginning of the year, and other dynasties would reflect the changeover in that same year. Ploversegg (talk) 23:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

Yes I agree with an overlap (although I half think LZS wouldn't have survived a power transfer in that day and age). The thing is that 2335 doesn't overlap 2334.
And OK, regnal dates start on New Year's Day for part of the Akkadian dynasty.
Sumerophile (talk)
Do you have any information about the first dynasty of Lagash, beyond Urukagina being contempory with LZS? Sumerophile (talk) 18:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


No. But as soon as I finish reading the "Kings of Larsa" http://cdli.ucla.edu/staff/fitz/dissertation.pdf which is a nice read btw, I'll take a look. Ploversegg (talk) 21:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

This is a good read. How did you come across it? Sumerophile (talk) 16:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Urukk and Akkad

Now I'm down to the second passes on the tricky early section i.e. Uruk and Akkad.

URUK - The main problem is that there is basically no attestation or support for the 4th dynasty of Uruk asside from the SKL. Added to this is the "one king" dynasty thing for 3rd and 5th dynasties of Uruk. And the suggestions that that some of the Uruk guys were governors from Ur (there is evidence, for example, that Utu-hengal and Ur-Nammu were brothers). Not sure yet how to handle this. The emerging trend is to smush together the 3rd and 4th Uruk in the 3rd and make Utu-hengal the 4th, but dunno

AKKAD - The names etc are mostly fine. The problem is the dates. Way back in the day, they set the chronolgy of Akkad by simply adding the length of the Gutian dynasty to begining of Ur-Nammu and making that the end of Akkaddd i.e, the last year of Shu-durul. Since then is has become clear that after Skar-kali-sharri, that the Akkadian Empire was tiny. There is also the issue that the "length" of the Gutian dynasty has several answers, with "100 years" being used for convenience. On top of that, there are suggestions that Shar-kali-sharri was contemporary to Sarlagab of Guti and Gudea or Urbaba of Lagash. So, the answer is to slide down Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad to overlap Guti somewhat. The question is "how much".

That's what I'm thinking about next. Ideas?

That and whether to add the Neo-Assyians ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ploversegg (talk • contribs) 20:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

After some thought, I went with a drop in the dates for Akkad, but a conservative one, in line with the conservative choices made in the rest of the article.

Now, to think about Uruk. Ploversegg (talk) 18:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Problem with Til Eulenspiegel.

This user is reverting wholesale the editing I did on the History of Sumer, referring to whatever I do as "bad edits", such as using the Oxford spelling of king names (there is no "official" standard, but some of the spellings in the article are inaccurate, such as three different spellings for Lugal-sha-engur in two paragraphs) and correcting a number of factual errors.

He has also made unhelpful edits by removing pictures from the still incomplete last half of the article rather than completing the missing information himself. I myself have not gotten to those sections yet, but removing pictures that will be a part of those sections is a step backward. And if editors cannot edit without disruptions like these, that article will never be completed.

He also added POV to the page, re-linking the mythical Deluge (mythology) with the historic king list, and removing a footnote about Aratta being unattested (and then "labelling" its unattested state POV).

His method has been to revert wholesale all edits another editor makes, not even sticking to the items he wants to contest, and then accuse the other editor of "edit warring".

References: WP:Civility, WP:POV

Sumerophile (talk) 18:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, my method is to initiate discussion on the talkpage to hash out our differences, which Sumerophile so far has not deigned to respond to. I have promised not to revert again until there is a consensus among editors. That means if he reverts to his version again, I will let it stay that way until due process takes its course. I am confident that by adopting a policy of cooperating with other authors of the article, we will solve all of these issues that we disagree on, that are now all detailed on the said talkpage. Please continue this discussion there. (Talk:History of Sumer). Thanks. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Initiating discussion on the talk page is not what you did, Til Eulenspiegel.

Sumerophile (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It isn't? Well who initiated it then? I am glad to see you are now responding there. And if you want to revert the disputed article to your version again, please do; I will even leave it your way pending consensus, because I want editors to easily see how bad it looks with a bunch of unneeded pics added to one-line sections messing up the whole appearance and edit links. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You reverted twice what you referred to as my "bad edits", before continuing your incivility on the talk page.

You should add material to the sections rather than complain about relevant pictures being there.

Sumerophile (talk) 19:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Formats for ANE Ruler pages

Is there some sort of "official" format for an article on a ANE ruler? I see that there is a Wikipedia project for biography and royal persons type articles, but the only ANE article that is currently on their list of properly done articles is Hammurabi. Some of the current Assyrian and Babylonian rules seem to use a before and after type template which seems ... awkward.

I guess the subtext was that I was thinking about doing pages for the rulers of Larsa and if so I wanted to do them in a format that makes sense.

You can get a sense for the various current formats by poking kings on Chronology of the ancient Near East.

Ploversegg (talk) 17:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)ploversegg

[edit] Regarding the variant "Belzebub"

Hello. Since the templates on the main page suggests this is "Ancient Near East"-related, I was wondering where "Belzebub" should be referenced in it's target article, as it is currently not even mentioned there. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

And "Beelzebob"? Why does it redirect there if the article does not mention the term? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology of the Ancient Near East

There was some discussion that the Chronology of the ancient Near East needed to be returned to its planned purpose as dealing with the short vs long etc controversies of ANE chronology and splitting of the dynasty ruler stuff to some sort of timeline article. Can we come to some sort of resolution/decision on the future of the article so I can continue to work on it?

I'm fine with whatever but the uncertainty makes it difficult to know how to proceed. As I understand it the choices are

  • Leave things the way they are
  • Rename Chronology of the Ancient Near East to, say, Timeline of the

Ancient Near East and revert the CANE to what is was before I started working on it and start from there

  • Split off part of CANE into a new article, say Timeline of the ANE

and leave part in the old article.

  • Something Else

Am going to drop this note is several places, including my talk page Ploversegg (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)ploversegg