Talk:Museiliha inscription
![]() | Museiliha inscription is currently a World history good article nominee. Nominated by el.ziade (talkallam) at 12:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC) An editor has indicated a willingness to review the article in accordance with the good article criteria and will decide whether or not to list it as a good article. Comments are welcome from any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article. This review will be closed by the first reviewer. To add comments to this review, click discuss review and edit the page. Short description: First-century AD inscribed boundary marker |
![]() | A fact from Museiliha inscription appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 December 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
GA Review
[edit]GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
- This review is transcluded from Talk:Museiliha inscription/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: Elias Ziade (talk · contribs) 12:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 19:32, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
I'll give this a look. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:32, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- We don't get a date, either in the lead or body, for Renan's first publication of the inscription. Can we have one?
- Date added. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- The inscription transcription doesn't quite match the infobox image. Line 2 in the image begins CAESARENSES, not CAESARENS. There are also clearly letters missing after SIDONIOR (presumably SIDONIOR[VM]). It should also be indicated that there are clearly missing letters after the restored DOM[ITIVM]. De Ruggiero, p. 443, seems to have the transcription correct.
- Yep, totally copied that one wrong LOL. I think it's much better now, thanks. el.ziade (talkallam) 00:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- The translation is accordingly not quite right. We should be consistent in referring to Caesarea ad Libanum by its Latin name, but the inscription talks about the people rather than the city. It should also be indicated in the translation that "procurator of Augustus" is a restoration.
- I agree with your version of the translations. It clearly mentions the inhabitants but the works I found refer to Caesarea ad Libanum as entity and Gigartans on the opposing side. I will try searching for more sources but until i can support this I cannot change it or it will constitute OR; please correct me if I am mistaken. I added notes about the restored and expanded text and used the Leiden Conventions to do so. el.ziade (talkallam) 00:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's a straightforward and obvious mistranslation (EDIT: or, more kindly, a deliberate fudge to avoid a very wordy result) ("Caesarenses" means "the people of Caesaraea"; the word for "Caesaraea" is, well, "Caesarea". Schlumberger, p. 339, unmistakeably states that the inscription refers to the people, not the place, so could be cited in support of a fixed translation. On a more important note, we now have a slightly odd situation where the transcription are given both in a footnote and in the main text. I would suggest cutting The abbreviated segments "pro[c(urator)] [of Aug(ustus)]" and "DOM[ITIVM...........] show that the reading “procurator of Augustus” and "Domitium" are restorations, with the restored letters indicated by square brackets, and abbreviation expansions marked by round brackets. from the body text and putting a footnote after the first use of each epigraphic convention (i.e., after SIDONIOR[VM], ⟦......⟧, PRO[C(VRATORIS) and DOM[ITIVM...........]), to explain what that particular notation means (in other words, break up note b and make it more specific to each case). UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist I rearranged the article, I think it flows better now.el.ziade (talkallam) 16:00, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, but I would still follow convention and put the "under the hood" stuff (such as explaining the notation system) into a footnote. This would further improve readability, I think. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:51, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist You're right. I added it to the table caption. Let me know if you'd rather I put it back in a footnote but I thought it makes more sense under the table. el.ziade (talkallam) 19:55, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, but I would still follow convention and put the "under the hood" stuff (such as explaining the notation system) into a footnote. This would further improve readability, I think. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:51, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist I rearranged the article, I think it flows better now.el.ziade (talkallam) 16:00, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- It's a straightforward and obvious mistranslation (EDIT: or, more kindly, a deliberate fudge to avoid a very wordy result) ("Caesarenses" means "the people of Caesaraea"; the word for "Caesaraea" is, well, "Caesarea". Schlumberger, p. 339, unmistakeably states that the inscription refers to the people, not the place, so could be cited in support of a fixed translation. On a more important note, we now have a slightly odd situation where the transcription are given both in a footnote and in the main text. I would suggest cutting The abbreviated segments "pro[c(urator)] [of Aug(ustus)]" and "DOM[ITIVM...........] show that the reading “procurator of Augustus” and "Domitium" are restorations, with the restored letters indicated by square brackets, and abbreviation expansions marked by round brackets. from the body text and putting a footnote after the first use of each epigraphic convention (i.e., after SIDONIOR[VM], ⟦......⟧, PRO[C(VRATORIS) and DOM[ITIVM...........]), to explain what that particular notation means (in other words, break up note b and make it more specific to each case). UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with your version of the translations. It clearly mentions the inhabitants but the works I found refer to Caesarea ad Libanum as entity and Gigartans on the opposing side. I will try searching for more sources but until i can support this I cannot change it or it will constitute OR; please correct me if I am mistaken. I added notes about the restored and expanded text and used the Leiden Conventions to do so. el.ziade (talkallam) 00:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Nineteenth-century French orientalist Ernest Renan : a false title: stick a The at the start to fix. There are a few others.
- Thanks! I will go over the article and fix the rest. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- because the cities of Caesarea ad Libanum (modern Arqa) and Gigarta were not neighboring, the land in question likely was an that belonged to Caesarea of Lebanon: see above re naming consistency.
- Changed all the occurrences to the Latin name. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- We are quite vague on the dates of many people and events in this story. Precise dates, where they are known, would be beneficial.
- I added publication and the Phoenician survey dates, if I missed any opportunities to further clarify the timeline please let me know.el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- the inscription is dated to the fourth quarter of the first century AD (75–100 AD).: I don't think we really need the brackets here for what is a routine calculation.
- Agreed, removed. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- All footnotes should end in a full stop/period.
- One image; PD status is fine, alt text is provided (though contains transcription errors).
- Alt text revised. el.ziade (talkallam) 15:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- I assume there's no chance of a photograph of the actual thing?
- There is a link, under the infobox, to an external image on the Louvre website. I would have liked to include this image under a non-free fair use rationale but I don't think these are permitted in GA articles. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- There's no rule against fair-use images in GAs (or indeed FAs), but using a photograph taken in modern times by the Louvre would not normally qualify as fair use. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:54, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- There is a link, under the infobox, to an external image on the Louvre website. I would have liked to include this image under a non-free fair use rationale but I don't think these are permitted in GA articles. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- Heavy reliance in the bibliography on nineteenth-century sources. If they say things that are also found in modern scholarship, it is preferable to substitute or add the modern source to show that it is still the general belief.
- Added newer sources.el.ziade (talkallam) 15:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Mancini p. 71 (I think quoting Mommsen?) has a more extensive conjectured reconstruction, which I think should be included.
Spot checks
[edit]- Note 8: I don't see this in the source, but the lack of page numbers online don't help. Can you pull out the text that supports the citation?
- Note 8 is now 10. Replaced link with one to a paginated scan. Corrected the page number from 82 to 551 (corrections and additions), included quoted passage in the postscript. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:00, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Note 13 checks out.
- Note 3: the Louvre website presents the date as uncertain (with [?]); we need to do the same. Dimensions check out.
- Good point, done. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- Notes 14/15: I don't see any hint in the sources that there was more than one name. Mancini goes into some detail as to why the name might have been erased, based on his conjecture that it's that of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso.
- This was sloppy of me. I used "personal names" but I should have used the singular form. el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- I will continue with the rest of the identified issues soon. Please let me know if you have more feedback @UndercoverClassicist: el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist: I think I got everything covered (except for the inhabitants part which I will research). Please take a look and let me know if you have more observations. el.ziade (talkallam) 00:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Good article nominees
- Good article nominees on review
- Wikipedia Did you know articles
- B-Class Lebanon articles
- Low-importance Lebanon articles
- WikiProject Lebanon articles
- B-Class Archaeology articles
- Low-importance Archaeology articles
- B-Class Classical Greece and Rome articles
- Low-importance Classical Greece and Rome articles
- All WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome pages