Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 February 21

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February 21

Beauty

There is an ongoing exchange of ideas on the talk page which I started about seven years ago, about the image in the lede. To keep any discussion in one place, I wonder if anyone might like to contribute there? MinorProphet (talk) 07:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Where is the Mari plaque?

This piece is gorgeous, does anyone know where it is? https://www.academia.edu/40608783/Texts_art_and_archeology_An_archaic_plaque_from_Mari_and_the_Sumerian_birth_goddess_Ninhursag Temerarius (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

In this article it's described with the inventory code "Museum Deir-ez Zor Inv. 19088 (TH97.154)" (the code "TH 97.154" is also mentioned in the paper you cited). This would suggest it's still in the local Deir ez-Zor Museum, near where it was excavated? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:47, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Temerarius (talk) 19:46, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Digit span

Is it an unreasonable test to ask someone to look at a US one dollar bill for a few moments, then hand the bill to someone else and repeat the 8 digit serial number from memory (ignore the two letters in the serial#)? This is apparently longer than most people's digit span but that test is usually given verbally. I can do the 8 digits but I'm a math nerd so that might not count. I'm wondering if a reporter should ask President Biden to do this, since he has been wanting to assure people that his memory is working well. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:2F14 (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I guess nobody else is here today. Sorry. You might enjoy going to a discussion forum on another corner of the internet, it's meant to be a source for references here rather than imagining hypotheticals that should happen. Someone will be by shortly to collapse this conversation. But if you think a reporter should do something, it's easy to become a reporter. Just make a phone call and write an article in the appropriate venue. Temerarius (talk) 02:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The part about the reporter was just explaining the motivation for asking the question about digit span when the digits are viewed on a piece of paper. The question of whether the average person (well, say someone qualified to be a high level executive in business or government) could do the task is hopefully an objective one, maybe even one with a reliably published answer, but in any case something that contributors here might have some usable wisdom about. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:2F14 (talk) 02:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Given that actual memory is only a tiny portion of being able to think, perhaps the test subject might have better things to do than to satisfy some random internet poster that he knows more than the people who actually vote. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 02:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

What can I say. I vote (thought California is not a swing state, so for the POTUS election my vote makes no difference), Biden's memory has specifically been called into question, the above test isn't much but it is quick and unambigulous, and I'd feel more comfortable with Biden (or for that matter Trump) if I saw them pass it on TV. Haley could probably pass it, Kissinger and Ellsberg (while alive, even thouch much older than Biden is now) undoubtedly could have passed it, so could others I could name, but I have real doubts about Biden and Trump. Here is a similar but slightly more time consuming test. These tests are administered in professional settings for a reason, not to entertain the test givers or takers. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:2F14 (talk) 08:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Well if successful, it might only prove that the subject was good at remembering numbers - a point you make yourself in your question above. But as has already been stated, we can't really engage in speculation here, see the Wikipedia Reference Desk guidelines. Alansplodge (talk) 12:12, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

One thing that I don't get is that Biden's defenders don't point out he has always been well known for gaffes, including verbal gaffes, basically his whole long career. Quoting our article on Biden:

Biden has a reputation for being prone to gaffes and in 2018 called himself "a gaffe machine". The New York Times wrote that Biden's "weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything".

(The NYT quote is from 2008.) To support the notion that his gaffes indicate mental decline, one needs to establish that their incidence has substantially increased.  --Lambiam 15:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this a named object?

I've seen this in a third place now, it says Cypriot. You can see it's not a rhyton like the filename says. Seems like such an oddball thing to be so widespread.

• 
  Cypriot
• 
  by Macalister in Gezer
• 
  by Petrie in Gaza

Temerarius (talk) 20:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

These seem to be examples of "base ring ware" bronze age pottery from Cyprus and some of those in the form of bulls do appear to be vases or drinking vessels. I got this information from a google image search using "base ring ware" pottery. Mikenorton (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Huh? It doesn't have a ring base. It has feet. Or hooves. Limbs. Temerarius (talk) 22:16, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

This might explain more, I've not read it through. Mikenorton (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll read the paper, thanks! Temerarius (talk) 00:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

My take on it is that Late Bronze age pottery, known as Late Cypriot (LC) was produced in large amounts and traded widely in the eastern Mediterranean. The older artefacts have a base ring, hence presumably the name, but the bull rhytons were a later development from the same workshops. They apparently all have two holes, one in the back for filling and another in the snout for pouring, so rhyton is a reasonable description. Mikenorton (talk) 11:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)