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)

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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:

Did you know... that the Museiliha inscription hints at a border dispute between ancient Caesarea ad Libanum and Gigarta?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Museiliha inscription.

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GA Review

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)[reply]

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 19:32, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give this a look. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:32, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.
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.
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

All footnotes should end in a full stop/period.

Done el.ziade (talkallam) 17:42, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One image; PD status is fine, alt text is provided (though contains transcription errors).

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.
Mancini p. 71 (I think quoting Mommsen?) has a more extensive conjectured reconstruction, which I think should be included.

Spot checks

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 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]