Talk:Adullam/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 21:45, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:45, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Why present Kh. esh-Sheikh Madkur, which is not definitely agreed to be Adullam, before Kh. ‘Id el Minya, which apparently is definitely Adullam? It would be better to give the reader the definite information first, and add the possible extra site to that.
• 'is thought by modern historical geographers to be the "upper Adullam"': I don't know what "upper Adullam" means.
• "The site is maintained by the Jewish National Fund in Israel, and where archaeological surveys and partial excavations have been conducted." Ungrammatical.
• "Earlier attempts at identification have led some to call other cave systems by the name of "Cave of Adullam." Early drawings depicting the so-called "Adullam cave" have tentatively been identified with the cavern of Umm el Tuweimin, and the cave at Khureitun (named after Chariton the ascetic),[14] because of their immense size, but have no reality with the layout of the caves found at ʻAid el-Miyeh." I think this is too vague. What are these "early drawings", and who identified them with Adullam. And the identification was "because of their immense size"? Why would that be a reason? And "have no reality" is unnatural phrasing. And why use "ʻAid el-Miyeh" but "‘Eid al-Miah" earlier -- if these are just different transliterations, shouldn't we be consistent?
• "It has been pointed out that Kh. esh-Sheikh Madkour, if indeed it is the biblical Adullam, lies only 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) southwest of Timnah, a site mentioned in Genesis, ch. 38, as being visited by Judah when he went up from Adullam to shear his sheep." I'm not sure this is worth including, but if you want to keep it, I don't think you need "It has been pointed out that" at the front -- the citation does that work.
• "The so-called "Biblical period", for time reference-sake, has been referred to by historians and archaeologists as the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age, meaning, the Late Canaanite and Israelite periods, respectively." Can we link to definitions of "Late Canaanite period" and "Israelite period"? Or define them in footnotes?
• "A.F. Rainey recognized Adullam (Kh. esh-Sheikh Madhkûr) as a Late Bronze Age site." Why do we need to mention that this was Rainey? Is the point that he was the first to recognize it as Late Bronze Age, or do others disagree? And I don't think we need to mention "Adullam", just the current name; we're talking about the antiquity of the site here, not the identification with Adullam, which we've said above is dubious anyway.
• The first three sections of "History" have no archaeological data; they only recount the biblical references and context. I would separate the biblical evidence and make it clear that's what the section covers. As written, this section takes the bible at its word. We need to let the reader know that the biblical account can't be treated as completely reliable -- Joshua, for example, is thought to be much less historically accurate than I Samuel, or so I understand. This material should be presented as conditional, with the reader given the information needed to evaluate it. You do this in some paragraphs, e.g. "According to the same biblical source", but it would be better to start the whole section by giving the reader the background so you don't need to repeat the information in each sentence or paragraph.
• Don't use external links in the body of the article.
• "According to Ezra, the acclaimed author of the book": I think you must mean "claimed", but why does it matter for this article who wrote the Book of Nehemiah?
• "The political entity that was established in Judea at the time was that of a vassal state, as Judea became a province of the Persian Empire, governed by a satrap." Wordy; couldn't this just be "Judea was a province of the Persian Empire at the time, governed by a satrap"?
• "Few records abound for the site during the classical period": "abound" can't be used like this. Technically you could say the records do not abound, but that would be strange phrasing. And I don't think you mean "few records for the site"; shouldn't this be referring to Adullam, not the site? "The site" refers to the physical location; the city was located at that site, but the records would not have been about the site, but about the city.
• "The copyist of the same tax ledger had erroneously mistaken the Arabic dal in the document for a nun, and which name has since been corrected by historical geographers Yoel Elitzur and Toledano to read ʻA'ïd el-Miah (Arabic: عيد الميا), based on the entry's number of fiscal unit in the daftar and its corresponding place on Hütteroth's map." Suggest a full stop after "nun", and then "The name has since ..."; and shouldn't it be "units", not "unit"?
• "According to Conder, an ancient road, leading from Beit Sur to Ashdod once passed through ʿAīd el Mâ (Adullam) and was still partially visible.": Give the date; the previous sentence relates to events centuries earlier.
• "Scholars explain this as a case of 'popular etymology', where, in Palestinian toponyms, the original denotation of a town's name is often "re-interpreted" by its local population": this isn't exactly wrong, but it's misleading. I would link to folk etymology, and remove the implication that this is specific to Palestine or to towns.
• The coverage of Radashovsky's excavation is limited to a couple of sentences. There appears to be a substantial final report available; the link from Radashovsky's reference seems to be just an abstract. Take a look at Knap Hill, which covers an archaeological site in detail; that's a featured article and this is GAN, not FAC, so you don't need that much detail, but it's disproportionate to have two sentences from a significant dig when there are three subsections on the biblical history.

I took a look at the previous GA nomination for this article. The article has improved significantly, but I think there's still more work to do than should be done during a nomination, and I'm failing this. My main concerns are the omission of any details of the dig, and the presentation of the biblical material (which also needs the same caveats in the lead). Best of luck with the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC)