Talk:Hama (queen)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Hama (queen)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Alanna the Brave (talk · contribs) 16:47, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article. Comments to follow over the next few days! Best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 16:47, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Overview

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Alrighty -- I'm almost finished assessing the article. It's an interesting read! The writing quality is strong (I've done a few copy edits, but nothing too major), and MOS formatting looks good. Earwig shows no copyvio issues, and a spot check of several sources looks fine to me. Ref list is well formatted. Article is neutral, stable, adequately broad in coverage and also well focused. I think it's almost ready to be promoted to GA status. I do have a few queries for you, however, and I've listed them below.

Lead

• I notice you've uploaded a cuneiform version of Hama's name from Spurrier's paper (very cool!), but I'm wondering: how did you determine which symbols refer specifically to Hama's name? As far as I can tell, Spurrier provides the entire inscription from Hama's stamp seal but doesn't break down the translation word by word. Are you familiar enough with reading cuneiform to be confident about translating Hama's name?

It turns out that I actually did get this wrong but I've updated the image. For verifying which part is Hama's name: the sign which immediately follows her name is in Spurrier's transliteration MUNUS, which corresponds to the sign which immeditely follows the sequence in the image (see the Neo-Assyrian Sign List, p. 47, second entry from the top). Hama's name is composed of three signs (as can be seen in the transliteration splitting it up as ḫa-ma-a. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for double-checking (and updating)! Your explanation sounds logical. Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Infobox

• Seeing as we’re not totally certain of when Hama died (only that it’s probably during or shortly after her husband’s reign), I think there needs to be a “circa” for Hama’s date of death.

Yeah, I've added two circas. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Life

• "The name Hama, Ḫamâ in Akkadian, is not known to have been borne by any other individual as a personal name." --> I can’t find this stated in the cited source. Are you saying that no other Assyrian queens had this name, or no other individual anywhere had this name?

I got this from the passage Unfortunately the personal name Ḫamâ is not otherwise clearly attested (i.e. there i no clear evidence of anyone else at all with this name). As an aside, several of the Assyrian queens we know of had unique names (perhaps assumed when they became queens/married the crown prince), including the later Esharra-hammat and Libbali-sharrat. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay -- sounds like a reasonable interpretation. I've edited the sentence just to make it "Assyrian individual," as I think this is a little clearer (I'm assuming there are human beings from other cultures in history who have had the name Hama). Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that's better. There is at least one other person in history who had Hama as a first name. Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Burial

• The photo caption for the golden crown states that it was found placed on Hama’s head, but this isn’t actually stated/cited in your main text. Does Spurrier or someone else confirm this?

It pops up in a few of the sources; Spurrier for instance writes on page 154 that The young woman was wearing a large gold crown decorated with pomegranates, rosettes, flowers, grape clusters, and winged female genie figures made of gold and precious stones and Pinnock writes on page 427 that At the beginning, it was believed that the coffin contained two bodies, one of a woman and part of one of a child, and that the latter wore the crown, which was much larger than his head. More in depth analysis proved that the coffin contained only one body, of a young lady, probably 18–20 years old, which was identified with queen Hama. Should this be incorporated into the text or a source added to the caption? Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Either option would work -- just so long as it's cited somewhere. Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I've added a citation to the image caption. Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• "including typically male funerary items such as seals and a gold cup depicting scenes of a king doing battle" --> this presentation of male funerary items doesn't seem entirely accurate: according to the cited source text of Spurrier, the odd seal found in Hama's coffin was not specifically “masculine” in quality, but simply belonged to someone else (a palace official).

Yeah, on closer inspection Spurrier's These scenes are usually related to kings, and so more masculine in nature iconographically, and not something typically found related to females seems to refer to just the scenes on the cup and not the seal; just removed "typically male". Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Modern studies

• "Though the coffin was destroyed, and the Mosul Museum was also attacked, Hama's bones were safe as they were at this time stored at the Iraq Museum." --> This statement about where the bones are stored doesn't seem entirely accurate: The USA TODAY source says only that Hama’s skeleton was previously in Baghdad’s museum, and this Toronto Star interview with Spurrier states that she has been unable to confirm with Iraqi museum staff whether the bones are still there (they were last definitively seen at the Iraq Museum during the 1990s).

Looks like you're correct - I've changed this part with a citation to the Toronto Star interview. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Photos

• While I'm satisfied that the photo of the Northwest Palace is appropriately tagged as public domain, I do have questions about the three photos of artifacts from Hama's tomb. On WikiCommons, creative works originating outside the U.S. generally need to satisfy copyright rules of the country of origin as well as U.S. rules. Since these photos were originally taken in Irag (and then published in an American journal), do they also need to satisfy Iraqi copyright rules as well as American rules to be uploaded to WikiCommons? I'm not totally sure myself (I'm not an expert on Wikipedia's copyright rules), so I've reached out to the Commons Village Pump to see if I can get some answers.

I was not aware so I'll defer to what the Village Pump has to say on this. Hopefully the images can be used because I think they add a lot. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Good news! I've been advised that it's the place of publication that matters in this case (U.S.), not the place of creation, so the photos do indeed have adequate licensing. They can stay -- I agree they add a lot to the article. Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Great to hear! Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to working with you to address these last few issues. I'll put the article review on hold for up to seven days. Best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@Alanna the Brave: Thank you very much for reviewing! I've responded to all of the comments above. Ichthyovenator (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ichthyovenator: Your updates look good, and my photo concerns have been resolved (see comments above), so the only thing left to do is to cite that info about the position of the crown. Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Alanna the Brave: Done :) Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ichthyovenator: Fabulous -- I'm now satisfied that this article meets all GA requirements. Thanks for all your work! Alanna the Brave (talk) 15:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)