Talk:Castle of al-Al

Dubious name

What was the name used by the Crusaders, in a) medieval French, and b) medieval Latin?
Why fortress and not castle? Translated from French...?
Where does "al-Al" come from? Is it the modern Arabic name of the site, or a second medieval Arabic one?
What is the modern name of the ruins? Khirbet al-Al maybe?
More questions than answers... Arminden (talk) 09:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Category

Arminden, why did you re ad category Principality of Galilee?--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 12:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Please see below. Arminden (talk) 18:14, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

"Category:Principality of Galilee": relevant or not?

The castle was built & defended by the Prince of Galilee (!), Hugh of St Omer, who had his residence just across the lake, at Tiberias. That alone is perfectly enough to make the Principality of Galilee be relevant.

If any discussion is required: Hugh tried, as was to be expected of him, to fortify the borders of his fiefdom and expand its territory. He did so by building castles–Toron and Chastel Neuf successfully, but the one at al-Al (whatever he called it in Latin and French), not so much. The borders were not stable yet, I'm not sure when the Terre de Suète treaty was agreed on, and in any case, see Devais (2010), mainly p. 78, explaining how it constantly evolved to become a Crusader march or limes with lordships and many resident knights, so much more than a condominium (he cites the Book of Jean d'Ibelin, written in 1264-66). This process had started immediately after the conquest of the Galilee by Tancred, in 1100. As a march of the Principality of Galilee, the Golan part of the Terre de Suète, especially the western slopes, are without any doubt firmly connected to the Principality. Al-ʽAl is within view from Tiberias!

Unless there is a clear Wiki rule against placing a category regarding a geographical area on a page dealing with a geographical place not 100% CONTAINED in the area of the category, rather than strongly related to it, I don't see how [[Category:Principality of Galilee]] can be irrelevant to the Castle of al-Al. Arminden (talk) 13:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete?

This article really should be deleted and included as a footnote to al-Al and Terre de Suète. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 19:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. Hugh of St Omer is an important figure of the First Crusade and the early Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he died fighting for this castle. Many books mention him, this episode, and Qasr Bardawil, so people are likely to look up the castle. Qalanisi's chronicle is quite detailed, it's quite likely that the remains of the castle just haven't been identified yet. Even if that's never going to happen, sites with a strong presence in historic literature are entitled to articles and usually get them.

Looking at the quantity of material we have here, most of which doesn't look superfluous to me, I don't see any way of squeezing it "as a footnote" in the Terre de Suète, and most definitely not on the al-'Al page. I don't really get it why you're suggesting it. What's not been identified yet doesn't deserve such attention? Very wrong, there are piles of useful articles on such sites. Arminden (talk) 21:57, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• Normally this would be decided either via WP:AFD or a formal merger proposal proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I have a great deal of respect for Hugh of St. Omer, but as your references point out, the castle wasn't real, so it really doesn't have anything to do with him. If this is an article about the Bronze Age ruins at Qasr Bardawil it should be changed to reflect that. But it's not clear that they are the same topic. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 06:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I never said it's not real; Moshe Sharon did. Others totally disagree. No way to know. SO many sites, from Troy down to obscure biblical ones, are identified after decades or centuries of skepticism. And both Qalanisi and Sharon are worth quoting: the one as a valuable Muslim cronicler, the other - a skeptic presenting a very intelligent theory. Arminden (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Maybe you never said it's not real, but the article certainly implies that. Two-thirds of it are doubts by Sharon, Pringle and Deschamps. Sinibaldi's work is an afterthought. Anyone reading the article (including myself) gets the impression that ibn al-Qalanisi wrote something and it's been disputed. Most of the article is negative, and showing simply that the site at Qasr Bardawil is not al-Al. I needs to be rewritten, retitled as an article on Qasr Bardawil or deleted. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 22:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but wrong again, Sharon dismisses it, Pringle and Deschamps don't. Deschamps identified it with Qasr Bardawil, and Pringle notes that meanwhile that option is out the window. Nothing about existence. Sharon, as a rule, is skeptical about Arabs. He's a specialist in his own field and must be quoted, but he's a skeptical one at that. The Italian lady with the PhD thesis is neutral. Arminden (talk) 06:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I guess you must be reading something different that me. Sharon and Pringle both reject Qasr Bardawil as a possible Crusader castle based on Kochavi (1972), kind of making Deschamps obsolete. The "Italian lady's" work seems to be the best. You have clearly done a lot of research on the subject and know it best. Why don't you convert that information into the article? Dr. Grampinator (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Rather than going over and over again through what we have already, maybe somebody could check the Frankish sources? Qalanisi is fine, but what about the Western chronicles? Or even different Muslim historians? But just contemporary ones, so as to check if Sharon's theory stands up to scrutiny and we only have one copying from the other. Arminden (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

These are some of the most thrilling topics. Those with clear and verified facts are fine in school: you learn, believe, and know. Or that's what you think. Here you understand how history and archaeology actually work, that everything needs to undergo scrutiny, again and again, and that long-held "truths" (Deschamps went there in the 30s and nobody doubted him for many decades) come to be overturned. These are the best, they teach you how to think and how to approach things. I don't know about Qalanisi, but most Muslim chronicles have been fully ignored in the West for centuries, until very recently.

And Wikipedia knows that, and its rules are totally adverse to glossing over disputes and controversies. Arminden (talk) 09:33, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Grampinator, hi. "I guess you must be reading something different that me." Not at all. You wrote that "Two-thirds of it are doubts by Sharon, Pringle and Deschamps": not so, and that's what I wrote. To make it double-clear: a) Your topic was EXISTENCE, not identification. Only Sharon doubts its existence. None of the others expresses doubts. Maybe they have them, maybe not, but they don't address it. c) IDENTIFICATION with Q.B.: that's been rejected, 100%, not 2/3. Bronze Age, final. So either Sharon is right, or Qalanisi. To figure that out, essential would be a) to know if indeed all the other sources mentioning a castle are visibly copying from Qalanisi, as Sharon postulates; and b) to wait for archaeology to do more work in that part of the Golan. a) is for now what can be done here to a certain degree, as b) doesn't depend on us :)

I've summarised this in the lead, but it's not fully correct either, as I repeat Sharon's claim (all sources are based on Qalanisi) as fact w/o checking it, 'cause life has its time limits. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 13:15, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The last sentence that you added to the lede says that the article should be deleted and the information included as an aside, perhaps in the article on Hugh of St. Omer. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 15:40, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

We'll never agree on meanings, so let's have a beer together, or a glass of cider, and call it a day. Arminden (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Before anything else is said: Sharon is a noted scholar, but also a quite extreme right-wing Israeli nationalist. He seems to have went into studying Muslim culture and civilisation based on the motto: know your enemy. He might be right and have understood how legends are created in the Middle East (or in the Middle Ages anywhere), but he does not go to the trouble of explaining the genesis of the "legend" in such a short time at less than 100 km from Damascus (Qalanisi was in his 30s when his emir allegedly destroyed the castle, he was among the politically well-connected people in the city, and the site is on a road to Damascus), nor does he deal with the Crusader-period findings from the village proper, which looked indicative of some larger building nearby. I did indeed offer a lot of space for his theory in the article for all the above-mentioned reasons, but I haven't come across any other source who quotes him. I don't know if he published it for the first time in the 1997 volume of CIAP, or if it was "in the open" before; Pringle's "Secular Buildings" is also from 1997, but Sinibaldi, who's probably a student of his (Cardiff U.!), doesn't mention Sharon's theory in 2014, nor does Devais in 2010. But peole have their inertia, and articles, encyclopedias, etc. are often stitched together from older, pre-existing material, so Devais is not the final proof that Sharon isn't taken serious or into account in regard to al-'Al by anyone in the field.

PS: yes, Pringle was Sinibaldi's PhD supervisor. Arminden (talk) 17:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Arabic name

The name written in Arabic was added in Sep 2020 by ephemeral, anonymous editor who was promptly blocked for 3 months and has since disappeared. He wrote "قلعة العال", "QL ALAL", which is doubtful (and left it in Lebanon, editing around that smart localisation, LOL, but also adding " near Al-‘Al", which is probably correct, if unsourced). I'm neither reading nor speaking Arabic, but I know that in such cases the letter t is added between the two vowels, so I expect "QLT ALAL". Maybe it's not written but only pronounced, like the article al- being pronounced ad-, at-, etc. according to the following consonant, but still being spelled al. In any case, I've written it out in the transliteration.

The problem is that there's no Qal'at al-'Al anywhere on Google. Maybe just because it's a less discussed topic, or maybe because Qalanisi is using another name? If the latter is true, we must find out and change the wrong name.

PS: the copy & paste doesn't work properly here w Arabic, it switches the sequence of the words, but that's not the case in the article, so ignore it here. Arminden (talk) 09:51, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

The article looks quite good now, and I was going to suggest that the Arabic rendition be deleted. Also, shouldn't she be referred to as "Micaela Sinibaldi" consistent with using the full names of the other historians in the section?

The reason I had deleted the links to articles on erenow.net is that I have been getting an error message on all links there since their certificate expired in August. I've tried it on multiple computers, but apparently it works for some and not other. My apologies. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 17:18, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Grampinator, thank you for your comments. As you might have noticed, I'm never in favour of deleting information that might be useful :) If there's a problem, deleting is the last thought I have - unless it's nasty or catastrophically bad. Let's try and google for the Arabic in Arabic! Haven't done that yet.

I have a very old computer, there's for instance a newspaper I can access on my old PC, but not w/o subscription on my newish cellphone. Maybe that's the answer. No need to apologise, I know how that goes, one cannot imagine all possibilities. Try an XP-operated PC, but hurry, more & more sites go out of reach from day to day. Cheers Dr., Arminden (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

'Micaela' added: check. You're right. I was a bit doubtful about her and it probably showed, it's a PhD thesis, and not one published in book form or in a journal, but Pringle stands behind it, and I guess by the time she made her PhD she was at least as qualified as various authors of popular books one easily considers RS, reliable sources. A very meticulous and experienced fellow editor once told me that a PhD thesis is accepted only in seldom & extra-ordinary cases. We actually disagree on that, but he did influence me it seems. Arminden (talk) 18:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Arabic name: we only do have the Arabic name, none in medieval French or Latin, and that suffix isn't such a vital issue, so definitely keep it, with the tag, until smb comes up with an answer. I'm looking now through Arabic websites, but I'm not too optimistic, it's very far away from my comfort zone. Arminden (talk) 18:31, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I am in partial agreement on the use of PhD theses as a source of information, as many are done quickly and of little use (including my own). However, if the author has a good advisor and has continued doing work in the field, then it should be considered. Sinibaldi clearly falls into this category. I did order her compilation "Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant" of papers written in homage to Pringle, which includes a paper by her, probably based on her thesis. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 19:55, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I see. Tell me, don't you think Pringle would deserve a WP page? I am using his gazetteer of secular bldgs a lot, the churches a bit less, but maybe collecting data is not "notable" enough on WP? Twinkle-twinkle.

Different topic: did you study history or smth related, and in English? No need to answer, it's an intro to another question. I'm having a hard time accepting a fellow editor's work of adopting German castellology terms into English and simply translating piles of German WP articles under those German names, kept in German or translated ad litteram. See for instance Zwinger. I've dealt with more German-language books on "Burgenkunde" than with English castle research, but Pringle, Johns, Kennedy, Runciman etc. for instance manage quite well without zwinger, water castle and so on. Your opinion? Arminden (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

My PhD is in math, algebraic topology in particular. And, yes, Pringle deserves a WP page as do many other contemporary Crusades historians. I may get around to it one of these days. It would be a good project for a new Wikipedian to get their feet wet. As to German, I am of no help. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 21:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I see. I just hung up with my best school time friend, who works in your field in France. But I need no help with German, rather with English. I need native speakers with an interest in castle research, who are best positioned to accept or reject borrowed terminology. You're active in the WP Crusades project, if you know suitable people there, I'd very much appreciate if you could put them in contact with me. Just trying. Have a great day, Arminden (talk) 07:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Syria

How are categories defined? This article deals with a site from the 12th c. on the Golan Heights. Back then it was a territory dominated by the Principality of Galilee, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with a nominal political and a fiscal condominium with Damascus. Today it is occupied territory (of Syria, by Israel, with a long tail of niceties to be added). If we go by the historical period, it's hardly Syria. If we go by current status, it's de jure Syria and Israeli-occupied. If a user wants to visit the area, they need to go via Israel, there is no way to get there from Syria. So, in terms of categories, what is relevant?

Right now we have "Castles in Syria" and "Medieval Syria". I doubt both can be left as such. The territory of what was the Kingdom of Jerusalem for either 100 or 200 years (depends on the area), has been ruled over long stretches of time (centuries!) during the mediaeval period by Egypt (Fatimids, Tulunids, Ayyubids, Mamluks). Damascus or Syria was the junior partner at best, and only from time to time, when it wasn't itself simply ruled by Egypt. If the historical period is relevant, "Medieval Egypt" should replace "Medieval Syria" or at least be added to that. Can of worms. But maybe there are clear WP rules here which can sort this out in a neat manner. If not, good luck with finding a compromise - unless people agree to drop one or the other Syria-related category w/o replacing it with anything else. Arminden (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2022 (UTC)