Talk:Lalibela

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Incoherent paragraph.

From the text:

Contrary to theories advocated by writers like Graham Hancock, the great rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were not built with the help of the Knights Templar; abundant evidence exists to show that they were produced solely by medieval Ethiopian civilization. For example, while Buxton notes the existence of a tradition that "Abyssinians invoked the aid of foreigners" to construct these monolithic churches, and admits that "there are clearly signs of Coptic influence in some decorative details", he is adamant about the native origins of these creations: "But the significant fact is remains that the rock-churches continue to follow the style of the local built-up prototypes, which themselves retain clear evidence of their basically Axumite origin."

That just doesn't make sense at all. Does someone have an idea of how to fix it, so that it is not on the face of it gigantically self-contradictory logically? -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 07:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Move page to Lalibela

Why on earth the redirect page? Surely this article should be under Lalibela?--Barend (talk) 09:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GeoHack - Lalibela data are wrong

The decimal-degrees lat/long co-ords in "GeoHack - Lalibela" are incorrect.

They should be: 12.031629186989777, 39.04116690158844

I don't know how to change them.
--Atikokan (talk) 01:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bees?

>"The saintly king was named so, because a swarm of bees is said to have surrounded him at his birth, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as Emperor of Ethiopia."

What do the bees have to do with his name? Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 07:24, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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External links modified

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NPOV

@Replayerr @Yubudirsi Your edits are in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. For example in this edit[1] someone added the claim that many Egyptian workmen migrated to Ethiopia and assisted in the construction of the churches, but if you actually read the source the author largely considers their influence on the architecture to be minor as the churches have much more stronger Aksumite influence. One of you guys also wrote that "Recent examination from archeologists conclude that the churches strongly contain a Syrian and to a certain extent Coptic influence" however the source says it was a melange of Syriac influence on only one church, but it also found that most of the churches had a stronger Aksumite influence. Why did you choose to omit this? Egyptian influence was largely restricted to decorations, one of you claimed that Beatrice Playne believed that the churches show "direct signs of Coptic architectural influence", this is incorrect, he only found that the decorations of two churches, the paintings of Ghennta Maryam and the relief sculptures of Golgotha had Coptic influence.[2] Then someone added a source writing that the "churches possess the general air of ancient Egyptian Temples" What does this even mean? Why did you even add this? All of this amounts to WP:SYNTH and is completely unacceptable on Wikipedia. Your overusage of primary sources is also problematic, although there is nothing wrong with adding the accounts of some foreign travelers, they have to be used in conjunction with a reliable secondary source, especially when dealing with conflicting/controversial claims. The source (Stuart Munro-Hay) added alongside these primary source said that foreign influence was marginal and directed towards "decorative elements". Furthermore a lot of these accounts are not reliable and shouldn't be trusted, for example James Bruce claims that Aksum was the work of Ptolemy III Euergetes, which is obviously preposterous. And btw pls don't play dumb or act innocent because Replayerr added this file for on Nur ibn Mujahid [3], which reserve image search reveals to have come from the account @EthioSeeker, and it just so happened that this Twitter account made a thread about Egyptians building Lalibela, and every single source used in that thread ended up on this article. So I know that's your account and they are POV-pushing issues behind all this, if you want I can contact an administrator to sort this nonsense out. This article should be primarily based on secondary sources, e.g. archeological research. New archeological excavations has revealed that the churches were built over the course of several centuries, there was no sudden burst of building but rather the structures evolved over the many centuries. New research shows that from 600-1000 AD Lalibela was a large religiously diverse city that even had a large wall/ruins around (which was later demolished), it was transformed into a religious center in the 12th to 13th centuries. Socialwave597 (talk) 05:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, Achille Raffray is a highly reputable source who personally visited Lalibela and was given a manuscript which annotated the leader who led the construction named Sidi-Miskael. He later included that "Sidi" is a name of non-Ethiopian origin and concluded it to be Egyptian. Deleting references you dont like is cherry picking. This isn't the place for "the truth" refer to Wikipedia:Truth. I agree that primary sources should usually be in conjecture with secondary sources which is why I will reinstate those primary sources alongside Stuart's citation.

Your edits to refine are welcomed but your slander by claiming that any Twitter account is related to mine is absolutely appalling and amounts to Wikipedia:No personal attacks . In-fact if you delve into the platform, there have been multiple threads discussing this interesting insight of Egyptian influence on Lalibela such as one made by @dervishconan who amassed around 60k+ impressions [4] Refrain from insulting me and keep cool and assume good faith . Replayerr (talk) 13:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nope its not "slander", accusations are only considered personal attacks if they lack evidence. You added the information of Egyptians architects in Lalibela[5] at around noon of March 8th. Just a mere five hours later, @EthioSeeker makes a thread about this using every single source you cited on the article. This is not a coincidence. The evidence strongly suggests that your Twitter account is "EthioSeeker", or that you are WP:CANVASSing and there is some type of off-wiki coordination going on here (which is even worse). I recommend that you either come clean, start addressing the evidence that I found, or drop this before we decide to escalate this even further. Raffray and the rest of the primary sources added has not been removed, they are still mentioned in the article although some of them have been trimmed down and kept brief. However, its interesting that you call Raffray a "highly reputable source", when in reality the scholar Monti della Corte and the linguist A. Van Lantschoot found that his translation of the manuscript was completely inaccurate, with no mention of Sidi-Meskal and Egyptian architects in the text. Can you please tell me why you once again decided to omit this? If you continue to violate the WP:NPOV by abusing primary sources and deliberately misquoting secondary sources to push WP:FRINGE theories, then this is a behavioral issue on your part, and addressing it now is how we're going to deal with it before it gets dealt with somewhere else. Socialwave597 (talk) 17:23, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the account belongs to me which is why I deem it slander. I have been attacked multiple times prior being labelled as a "sock puppet". It is merely a coincidence and I will need valid proof provided to your claims instead of randomly attaching myself to them. As I said before this absolutely appalling and amounts to Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Re-read the response I have given,

" In-fact if you delve into the platform, there have been multiple threads discussing this interesting insight of Egyptian influence on Lalibela such as one made by @dervishconan who amassed around 60k+ impressions [4] "

This thread was made on the 5th of March, 3 days prior to my edit with the exact same sources posted by @Ethioseeker. I could also assume from this that they may have simply reposted that content as they follow each other. I just find it very distasteful and unorthodox for you to label my edits a behavioural issue when you should assume good faith. Replayerr (talk) 19:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]