Talk:Ancient furniture

Dear Wikipedia Editors,

This is my first Wikipedia article, and I hope to be able to continue fine tuning it and watching new changes put into place by my fellow Wikipedians. I believe that this article needs to be separate from the larger furniture article, as it will soon have sections on Rome, Egypt, and the Near East. Moreover, I do not feel that this is specialized information with excessive intricate detail - this is the very minimum of information that is necessary to understand the topic. As a point of comparison, if all of the history of ancient Greek architecture were relegated under Architecture, there would be far too little room for expansion on the topic. Thank you for your time, and once again, I look forward to future dealings with Wikipedia.

Einav.Zamir (talk) 05:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)Einav.Zamir

Separate article?

The "ancient world" consists of any place that's pre-classical. There are a lot of cultures which developed their furniture throughout the years; changing the furniture's forms from what would be called "primitive" to many modern day people.

Either this is going to be a huge article, or it might be a smaller article that "leads" to the more specific articles. I.e "Ancient Greek Furniture", "Ancient Native American Furniture", "Neolithic Furniture", etc. What do you think? 24.56.179.139 (talk) 18:37, 7 May 2015 (UTC) Artheartsoul1 (talk) 18:41, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Article Needs Serious Expansion

The Ancient world isn't just Rome and Greece. If the article intends to be exclusively about Rome and Greece it should be renamed to something along the lines of "Furniture in Ancient Greece and Rome." If the article intends to be about furniture throughout all of the ancient world, then it needs to be expanded to include China, India, Egypt, Sumeria, etc.

Yes, or a rename to Furniture of classical antiquity or Furniture of ancient Greece and Rome or similar. Johnbod (talk) 21:33, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Image

The image in the section about Ancient Israel is from the Upper Paleolithic era. I only put that image there because I had nothing better to put there. Should the image be removed? Ewf9h-bg (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ancient furniture/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: JackFromReedsburg (talk · contribs) 02:48, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I will be reviewing this article. Expect comments by the end of the week. JackFromReedsburg (talk | contribs) 02:48, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

General comments

• Mentioning that the Aztecs grew crops in their homes shouldn't be in the lead. It's not furniture related.
• I suggest replacing it by saying that the Aztecs often didn't use furniture, and when they did it was fairly simple in design and construction.
• Lots of short sentences make the prose feel choppy:
  • Mesopotamia section:
    • Chairs would also have wooden and ivory finials depicting arms. These finials would have bull's heads. The chairs would be painted with many bright colors. -> Chairs would also have wooden and ivory finials depicting arms and the head of a bull. The chairs would typically be painted with many bright colors
    • People would also use wooden tables to hold meals or belongings. Rich people would often decorate their tables with metals. -> Wooden tables were used to hold meals or belongings. Rich people would often decorate their tables with metals.
    • Doors and doorframes might have been made of wood, and on occasion doors would be made of red ox-hide.
    • Mesopotamians would hide a crude statue in their house to ward off evil spirits. -> Crude statues would typically be hidden in order to ward off evil spirits.
    • I don't see a need to include 17 varieties of wood, as its fairly unremarkable, unless specific varieties were chosen for their particular characteristics.
    • Wealthy citizens would have chairs padded with felt, rushes, or palm wood. The chairs would also have leather upholstery. -> Wealthy citizens would have chairs padded with felt, rushes, or palm wood, and they would contain leather upholstery.
  • Egypt section:
    • Most Egyptian furniture was wooden, but there was some stone furniture. -> Most furniture in Egypt was made of wood, but stone was not uncommon. or Egyptian furniture mainly composed of wood, with stone-built furniture a rarity, or Most Egyptian furniture was made of wood or stone.
    • There are depictions of a low-back ox-legged chair. There is also a portrait of Amenhotep III sitting in a low-back lion legged chair. Most couches and chairs in Ancient Egypt were animal furniture. Some of the legs would be the front legs of the animal, while the others would be the back legs. -> Most couches and chairs in Ancient Egypt were constructed from animals. There are depictions of a low-back ox-legged chair. Additionally, there is a portrait of Amenhotep III sitting in a low-back lion legged chair.
  • (this is not an exhaustive list)
• All maintenance tags need to be resolved, including "clarification needed".
• All images are correctly licenced
• Copyvio check:
  • this website copied from wikipedia, as that information was here prior to the blogpost.
• I found references to be a bit lacking.
  • The Dilmun section is only cited to one source. Please find additional sources, and put them inline.
  • Encyclopedia Britannica is cited several times, which is a tertiary source. These are alright, but not ideal.
• Remove many of the images in the Rome gallery. We can link to commons to show images (as we already have in the bottom).
• Paragraphs are very long, and as such are harder to read. Please break them up into smaller chunks.
• Much more attention is given to Greek and Roman furniture. I would appreciate if other culture's could be brought up to the same standard as the Greek and Roman sections.
  • I suggest splitting off Greek and Roman furniture into their own articles as well, although it is not necessary for GA.
• Other ancient american civilizations should be listed, not only the aztecs.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Discussion

• This article as it currently stands fails criterion 1. It also partially fails criterion 4, although if no reliable sources existed about other ancient cultures than the ones listed, then it would pass. I do not believe that these issues can be fixed in the standard 1 week hold period, so I will be failing this nomination. I encourage you to take my feedback and bring this article up to the GA standard. JackFromReedsburg (talk | contribs) 17:22, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

"Most couches and chairs in Ancient Egypt were constructed from animals"

I find the above highly unlikely - did the author mean "animal bones"? Or perhaps what they meant was something like "most couches and chairs were decorated with animal motifs", in which case the sentence needs to be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.172.154.52 (talk) 20:31, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ancient furniture/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Liam2520 (talk · contribs) 01:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello. I will be reviewing this article. Expect comments within a week.

Comments

Prose

The prose still contains many sentences that are short and choppy, which affect the readability "flow" of the article. For example, here you mention three cultures in four separate sentences.

In Egypt thrones were only used by the rich. Dilmunite stools would be richly decorated if the user was wealthy. Upper class citizens in China would decorate their beds. In Israel the only beds with pillows were owned by wealthy people.

Clear composite and complex sentences, as well as properly placed commas, improve readability. For example, these two sentences,

In Egypt, thrones and richly decorated dilmunite stools were only used by the wealthy. Upper class citizens in China would decorate their beds, while in Israel, only wealthy people owned beds with pillows.

would likely "flow" easier.

Coverage

I have seen you have extended the article quite a bit since the last GAN, but the Indian section is sill quite short. I see that there are a number of references for that small section, so if you can have a bit more info drawn out from each of them, that would be great.

Wording

Section 4.1

The most common form of Greek seat was the backless stool, which must have been found in every Greek home.

Section 5.1

Both slaves and emperors used it, although those of the poor were surely plain.

Try to remove these weasel words (and others throughout the article), and reword it in a more encyclopaedic tone. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch.

Sections

Lead

• This is the section that needs to be the most accessible and easy to read, which means cleaning up the prose. If someone only reads the lead, they need to know only the most important parts about Ancient Furniture, in a clear and easy way.
• Some civilizations used inlay. Be more specific.
• Some ancient furniture had religious or symbolic purposes. Late nineteenth-century art movement – not the right link, I think.
• Other civilizations had such differences. That sentence doesn't really make much sense in this scenario. Consider rewording it.

Greece

• I think this section could do with some more links. Link to some of the different types of wood, veneered, as well as carving, steam treatment, and the lathe, if they have their own articles.

Rome

Minor issue:

were preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 — change link to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Japan

Despite the fact that bamboo was common in the furniture of other ancient Asian cultures, bamboo was not common in Japanese furniture.

Can you provide some specific examples of the other cultures?

Israel

How does the image provided directly relate to what is in the article? If it doesn't, remove and try to find a replacement.

Mesoamerica

Is it possible to provide some more pictures for this section? I think that it would enhance the article since furniture is quite a visual thing.

Also, can you link the start of the Incan section with the relevant article, if there is one?

Review

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Fail
· · ·

Result/Outcome

I have failed this article because I believe it does not meet GA criteria number 1, as well as partially not meeting criterion 3, 4 and 6. I do not believe that the article can get to GA standard within the one week holding period.

Suggestions

• Read Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
• Consult other users before putting this article up for GA again.
• Reread this, and the previous GA review.
• Follow the Good article criteria precisely.

I would like to see this article at GA level, and wish you all the best at getting it there.

Kind regards,

Liam2520 (talk) 03:12, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I fixed the article

I removed all the copyright violations, or at least I think I did, and I created a rewrite. Ewf9h-bg (talk) 19:14, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

@Ewf9h-bg Sorry for the delay- upon further examination the copying goes beyond the disertation- I've removed everything copied or too closely phrased to the Jstor book. I know I am asking a lot when I say this, but you should look through every single source you have cited and remove any similarities you find. I will try to help where I can, but I don't believe I'll be able to access all of the sources. Clean up of this article will be a very long process, I'm predicting several weeks given the massive number of sources and current progress. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 06:58, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@Moneytrees🏝️ When you say "look through every single source you have cited" do you mean just the Egypt section or the entire article?

@Ewf9h-bg I would say all of the ones you used in the article, or at least the ones you relied on the most when writing the article. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌵CCI guide} 03:57, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Also, please keep your rewrites to Talk:Ancient furniture/Temp- the rewrite happening there will get jumbled with the rewrite happening here if they are worked on separately. Once the /temp page is free of copyright violations, the content there will be pasted on to the main article, so any rewrites on the main article will end up getting removed, or it will take an unnecessary amount of time figuring out what needs to be replaced and what doesn't. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌵CCI guide} 05:23, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Progress on copyright issues

I've finished checking the Sumeria section and the Mesoamerica section of the article. The Greece and Rome sections don't need to be checked since they were written by a different user. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌵CCI guide} 05:44, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Everything up to Talk:Ancient furniture/Temp#Beds 2 has been cleared. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌵CCI guide} 04:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I've finished cleaning the text and have moved the rewrite into place. Several edits containing text closely phrased to the source have been removed. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk🌵CCI guide} 21:33, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Pompeii and the Cities of Vesuvius

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 12 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mdaisy29 (article contribs).