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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Unas/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13:36, 24 April 2015 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Unas

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Nominator(s): Iry-Hor (talk) 08:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Unas, the ninth and last ruler of the 5th Dynasty of Egypt, ruling in the mid-24th century BC. Although not much is known of his activities during his 15 to 30 years long reign, Unas is best known to us as the earliest king to have the Pyramid Texts inscribed on the walls of his pyramid, one of the oldest religious text still in existence. This could explain why Unas' article receives c. 40,000 views / year, about twice as much as a typical Old Kingdom pharaoh. Article passed GA on the 23rd of March and is part of a series of GA and FA articles on the 5th Dynasty (see Shepseskare, Sahure, Pyramid of Userkaf). Iry-Hor (talk) 08:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I reviewed for GAN, and the few points I identified then as needing to be tweaked before FAC have been dealt with. The article reads well, is widely and thoroughly cited, and as far as I can see is comprehensive. With FACs for articles on topics of which I am ignorant (it is remarkable how many there are) I try to find online equivalents, both free and subscription, for comparison. I had to dig hard to find anything about Unas (or any of his alternative spellings). This Wikipedia page is much the best encyclopaedia article I can find on the topic. A fine job. Tim riley talk 16:32, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Iry-Hor (talk) 07:36, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
  • For some reason the first image in the Pyramid section is displaying its alt text as the caption
I've fixed these two problems myself (and am working on a source review). A. Parrot (talk) 19:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your help. Iry-Hor (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: I am sorry, I do not know what is a US PD tag? The Brooklyn museum database, from which this photo originates, states that it has "no known copyright restrictions" see here, furthermore the wikicommons page states that the author died more than 70 years ago. I do not know who the author is, since it is not listed on the Brooklyn museum database. Iry-Hor (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I got it, I added the necessary tag based on the "no known copyright restrictions" statement from the Brooklyn museum. Let me know if this ok. Iry-Hor (talk) 20:58, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's right, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by A. Parrot

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Source check

  • Is it necessary to cite Naydler? He is not an Egyptologist and his book is uncomfortably close to fringe territory (see this discussion on my talk page and, if you can access it, [www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27651811?sid=21104948486711 this review]). I know the book is used to cite something that doesn't need deep interpretation, but you already cite an RS to support the same statement.
You are right, I only put up this book because it was the only one I could find with an accessible drawing of Unas' Sed festival relief. I hesitated at the time over wether to keep the citation or not and I should have removed it. Done now! Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Oxford Encyclopedia articles are listed as separate works in the bibliography, but Allen et al. 1999 is listed as one work even though you cite two articles from it. Both works should be treated the same way. I'd prefer to combine the Oxford Encyclopedia entries, as the bibliography is pretty long.
The problem is I do not know how to do that because the various entries from the Oxford Encyclopedia which I quote were written by different authors and come from Volume 2 and Volume 3. At the opposite, the references from Allen's Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids which I use were all written by C. Ziegler so I could easily combine them in the bibliography using the "chapter" option of the cite book template and a harvid option so that the reference reads "C. Ziegler in Allen et al.". I do not know of to make several such harvid showing up differently but pointing to the same bibliography item. Thus I do not know how to meaningfully combine these references. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I missed this reply. I didn't realize Sfn templates made it difficult to do that, unlike the Harvnb system I use. Assuming you don't want to convert the article's entire reference system, I suggest you either split the bibliography entries for the two Ziegler pieces, or ask at WP:Village pump (technical) if there's a way to use Sfn to cite multiple authors in one book, where all the citations link to one bibliography entry. A. Parrot (talk) 17:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are two citations (5 and 15) to Malek in Shaw 2000. The second one refers to page 102, which is correct in my copy. The first refers to page 112, which seems to be a typo for 102 (page 112 is in Seidlmayer's chapter on the First Intermediate Period).
You are right it is a mistake, now corrected. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know there are already a lot of citations to Lehner 1997 p. 154 and 155, so it might not make sense to combine them all into one. The part about the Pyramid Texts, though, runs across those two pages, so it's probably advisable to change the PT-related citations (currently 98g and 98h) to pp.154–155.
Done. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lehner 142–144 says Sahure's temple has palmiform columns, but it doesn't seem to say that that was the first known time they were used. Do you have another source that says that?
You are right it is not in Lehner, I am sure I read it somewhere but can't find the source anymore. I changed the statement to " A palmiform column is a column whose capital has the form of palm leaves. This style is for example present in the mortuary complex of king Sahure" and will put it back when/if I can figure out where I read this. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citation 119 should be changed to p. 250–251.
Done. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other points

  • There are a couple of problems with the word "bedouins". For one thing, "bedouin" is an Arabic plural and doesn't need an -s. More importantly, it may not even be the right word here. I know the word is sometimes used in Egyptology, including in your source, to refer to transient people on the fringes of Egyptian territory. But our article bedouin regards the term as applying only to Arabs, who wouldn't have been in the Egyptian deserts in Unas' time. Maybe a broader term like "nomad" would be better.
Done, "nomad" is a good suggestion. I also used the term "desert dweller" which I have seen in some sources. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd prefer not to italicize the Cannibal Hymn or Memphite Theology. They're much shorter works than the major funerary texts, and in my experience, Egyptologists don't italicize either name. There might be grounds to put the Cannibal Hymn in quotation marks, as it's part of a larger work and, unlike other spells in the major funerary texts, it's known by a name and not just a number. However, most Egyptological sources don't even use quotation marks (e.g., [2]).
Ok done. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nearly all scholars today believe the Memphite Theology was composed well after the Old Kingdom; this study mentions only one recent dissenting source (see p. 107), and it apparently doesn't argue the question in detail. The major dispute now seems to be whether the text comes from the Ramesside period or Shabaka's own time. The old claim that the Memphite Theology was composed under Unas might still be worth mentioning in this article, but only if it's made clear that it's an outdated view.
Ok bit on the Memphite Theology moved to a footnote, Ockinga reference added for the datation of the text. Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Egyptological sources often claim that the Pyramid Texts are the oldest religious texts in the world, but I increasingly doubt that claim. Sumerians began assembling elaborate lists of gods in the Early Dynastic I period. A list might not seem as complex a composition as a hymn, let alone the PT, but my source says "lists of gods remained one of the most productive theological genres throughout the entire life span of Mesopotamian civilization" (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, "Histories: Mesopotamia", in Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, edited by Sarah Iles Johnston, 2004, p. 166). And yes, the PT existed long before Unas' time, but we have no way of knowing how long. To claim that the PT are the oldest anything, we'd need a source that examines other religious texts up to that time, from Egypt and Mesopotamia, and says exactly what was new about the PT. I don't think anybody has actually done that.
Well I agree that it is a bit contentious so I removed the bit on the Kesh temple hymn and left simply "[...] one of the oldest religious text in Egypt having survived to this day". Iry-Hor (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@A. Parrot: Let me know if these edits are fine for you. Iry-Hor (talk) 12:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I have a bunch of real-life obligations today. I'll examine these changes and get back to you within the next 12 hours. A. Parrot (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No worries! Take all the time you need. Iry-Hor (talk) 20:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All those changes look good. I've noticed a variety of small prose flaws, mostly related to English idiom. I made changes to address the ones I saw (see what you think of them, Iry-Hor). Just to make sure there aren't any more, I want to read over the article one more time, with fresh eyes, before I support. I should get to that by this time tomorrow. In the meantime, I have one more suggestion that seemed significant enough to bring up here:

"Given that the ancient Egyptians did not conceive of dynasties…" This sounds a little bit odd to me, given that Manetho was an ancient Egyptian, although the Greco-Roman era in which he lived is often considered not genuinely Egyptian. Maybe "ancient Egyptians before Manetho's time did not conceive of dynasties", if the source's wording supports that. A. Parrot (talk) 04:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@A. Parrot: The source, which has 3 pages of discussion on the idea of dynasty during the Old Kingdom, favors the idea that dynasties were a later invention which might not have been recognized by the Old Kingdom Egyptians: "Nous suggérons par conséquent, faute d’explication convaincante de la notion de dynastie à l’Ancien Empire [...] qu’un tel découpage pourrait avoir été inconnu. De la sorte, la division dynastique à cette époque serait due à une tradition postérieure aux événements, «résultat de sa propre interprétation des textes disponibles»" meaning roughly "We thus suggest, in the absence of a convincing explanation for the notion of dynasty during the Old Kingdom [...] that such a division [into dynasties] might well have been unknown. Therefore, the dynastic division at this time [i.e. between the 5th and 6th dynasties] would be due to a later tradition resulting from its own interpretation of the available texts." Consequently, I changed the text to "that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom period might not have conceived of dynasties". Thanks for your edits to the text, the article reads much better now. Iry-Hor (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on comprehensiveness and prose - I read this a couple of times on my smartphone while waiting for something or other. Nothing jumped out as a glaring prose-fix, hough there may still be some non-deal-breaker tweaks left. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:20, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Can we call this a consensus? Iry-Hor (talk) 13:23, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I believe three supports is the minimum required for passage, so it should be promoted the next time the delegates come around. I do have an unresolved comment about the references above, but it's a persnickety thing that doesn't affect the substance of the article, so you don't really have to address it if you don't want. I hope that hasn't been holding up promotion. A. Parrot (talk) 20:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@A. Parrot: I am sorry I must have missed it, what was your comment? Iry-Hor (talk) 08:58, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Iry-Hor:: it's my latest comment about the separate entries for the Oxford Encyclopedia articles (bullet point 2 in my source check). A. Parrot (talk) 17:36, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- The second paragraph under Pyramid is uncited after "The pyramid of Unas is the smallest". If this were simply an introduction to the cited material following then it would be okay but much of it, e.g. dimensions and considerations of greatness do not seem to be elaborated upon and cited in the remainder of the section. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ian Rose: Sorry for the delay, I was super busy and just saw all the posts. I added citations for the dimensions of the pyramid and removed the last sentence of the paragraph so it is now fully cited. Iry-Hor (talk) 10:39, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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