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Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk) 07:44, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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The Priest-king, c. 2000–1900 BCE
The Priest-king, c. 2000–1900 BCE

Created by Johnbod (talk) and Aglrochisat (talk). Nominated by Johnbod (talk) at 03:27, 5 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]

  • Jumping on this so I have a QPQ in pocket for a later date... Whether we call it a new creation or an expansion, it easily qualifies length-wise. I see no issues with remaining CV, the sourcing is solid, and the tone is NPOV. The hook is interesting and tempts the reader to click not only on the bolded article but also the Dancing Girl link as well, which I love. No issues with the source or the content of the hook, and the length is fine. Confirmed by archive.org that the image was legitimately released as CC in 2006, it is used in the article and looks nice even at a small size. As soon as the QPQ is done, this is good to go. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - QPQ done - Template:Did you know nominations/Xia Ji. Johnbod (talk) 16:43, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fame

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Can we say in Wikipedia-voice that the sculpture is "the most famous stone sculpture" of the Indus Valley civilization? Please attribute it or show that a significant number of scholars make the same judgement. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:36, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

??? It's a quote, in quotation marks, with a reference, as it happens to the leading expert Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, and a bolstering reference from Gregory Possehl. It is not "in Wikipedia-voice" at all. As it happens, there are (as the article explains lower down) very few stone sculptures indeed from the IVC at all, and this is head and shoulders (ha-ha) above any of the others in terms of both fame and quality, as all scholars covering it say in one way or the other. Johnbod (talk) 16:56, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the claim is fine as it is. Kenoyer is attributed in the reference, is mentioned further down, and has a linked wiki article outlaying his credentials. Ceoil (talk) 18:40, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm warning you Johnbod, you have picked a topic you have thus far given little evidence of knowing anything about. DYK stuff I won't bother with, but if hurry on to parking it at FAC, I will oppose it for many reasons, not least a lack of comprehensiveness, highly selective use of sources, and POV—not only an art history POV in a large topic area of pre- and proto-history, but also a naive pro-India POV in the description of its pre- and post-partition travails. It went to New Delhi from Lahore in January 1947 for the Inter-Asian Relations Conference, and an accompanying Inter-Asian Exhibition of Art and Archaeology, not for Wheeler's grand national museum of undivided India. India was partitioned in August 1947. (By January 1947, after the League's near-unanimous victory in the 1946 elections in the Muslim-majority regions, and Labour and Attlee's in the British general elections with their stated aim of decolonizing India pronto, even the most woolly-headed and misty-eyed old India hands at the India Office knew some version of Pakistan was coming.) The Indians thereafter sat on these exhibits in the most sneaky and aggressive fashion, returning only the "priest-king" after the Bangladesh war (1971) when Pakistan was down on its knees, the Indians had 90,000 Pakistani POWs in their back pocket, and Indira Gandhi had made Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto sign the so-called Simla Agreement ( I might add there is a lot of so-called in South Asia-related matters: the so-called Priest-King; the so-called Pashupati seal; the so-called Maurya Empire, ...) that no Western power recognizes today, and tossed the priest-king at him as he was hobbling out of her palace, still on his knees—taking a thousand low bows, mindful of never showing his back—a little bonus of India's magnanimity. Don't ask me to find the sources, that is not my job. But I know spin in South Asia-related matters when I see it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, Mark Kenoyer is someone I once knew. The claim is in a junior high school book he wrote with Kimberly Heuston, not in his magnum opus. (The language is one usually used for reeling in sleepy teens into abstruse topics.) I have used the book mostly to demonstrate in arguments on India pages that "ancient" can be used with "South Asia," even with "Pakistan," that India doesn't have a time-independent claim on the subcontinent (nor for that matter on the ocean below) just because of a misnaming of long ago. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know, as you keep saying so. The statement seems (see above) a simple and uncontentious statement of fact to me. There simply is no other IVC stone sculpture of any "fame" at all (I know you've stopped actually reading things before you revert or tag them, so I'll bold for your convenience). If you disagree, please suggest one. Do you have a source for (the date in) "It went to New Delhi from Lahore in January 1947"? Also whether it remained in the early National Museum of India from 1947 to 1972 - one imagines it did? As you know from your earlier fruitless researches trying to prove my sources wrong, the space for the "Central Imperial Museum" was allocated as far back as 1912 (was it?), so it is hardly "Wheeler's" idea. I'm aware of the 1947 exhibition, and a later one in Japan, but lack adequate sourcing. I'm also fairly sure it was in the post-war Royal Academy exhibition in London (why wouldn't it have been), & one day will get a look at the catalogue to confirm. The 1931 catalogue was a handy & unexpected find. Excuse me if I don't follow your highly neutral language on Indo-Pak matters! With several paras on it, I can't reasonably be accused of neglecting the dubious status of the name given to the sculpture, but it has stuck. This is an article about a work of art, not at all your strong point, and as usual you keep trying to turn the discussion to political history. None of the main sources are Indian; your old mate Kenoyer & Possehl are the most often used. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1912. Well, let's see, ... off the top of my head ... George V announced the move from Calcutta to Delhi in December 1911. Lutyens arrived in the summer of 1912. His plans were deemed too costly by Harding, the Viceroy. Lutyen began to charm the Vicereine into becoming the patron instead, which she did. ... Her son was grievously injured in Flanders (1914). But she died of worry, it was said, before he succumbed to the injury. By the time the blueprints were ready, Lutyens and Baker had begun to fight. Construction began, sputtered, ... years went by, a decade did, ... finally, the city was inaugurated in 1931 (See my humble contribution). They built office buildings, shopping centers, colleges for women, high schools, hotels, but no museums, not even an arrow pointing to a future one. (Free-associating now.) Why would someone build a museum of all places in Delhi? The whole city was a museum. More than half a century earlier, when Ulysses Grant visited the city during a world tour after retirement, he slept through the welcoming ceremony by the Chief Commissioner (in whose house he stayed (you may read about it in Ludlow Castle, Delhi) But when he was taken the next day to see the ruins of the city built by Muslims, he did wake up, and later wrote some fiercely anti-colonial words in his diary (far ahead of his time). ... Back to the 1930s and the 1940s ... the partition happened. The only pre-Lutyens monument in the 1931 commemoration stamps above became a refugee camp ... The trek to the border was long, the route best unseen by some. ... Now 75 years later ... The problem with the partition is that in India it is not just the Hindu nationalists who haven't accepted it; the secular intellectuals, the English-speaking liberals, and haven't either. So, stealing a few figurines and seals from Mohenjo-daro, and making up stories and a justification for why they were rightly theirs and their ancient country's has not given anyone sleepless nights. This is not really addressed to you Johnbod. Just musing ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:51, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS Now more seriously, ... I don't have any issues btw with that statement, just the source. I can help you there. Hold on, I have the book lying somewhere. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:34, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What statement? One of the museology articles you claimed to have read (before poo-pooing it in your usual fashion) explained that a corner of the Janpath crossing where the NMI now is was set aside for a central museum at the earliest stage of planning the new capital (thanks for confirming this was indeed 1912). So, if only on a plan somewhere, there was indeed "an arrow pointing to a future one". Again, you don't seem to grasp how the planning and execution of such things works. Johnbod (talk) 01:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see that primary source which had dreamed up the grand museum of the British Indian Empire on Queensway (old name for Janpath) in 1912. No one seems to have beren able to produce even 110 years later. Supposedly, all the provincial museums were to donate something of value to this museum. But when push came to shove, the provincial museums sat on their prized possessions, Sarnath on its Lion Capital and meditating Buddha, Mathura on its Kanishka, Imperial Museum Calcutta on its many-armed Durga, ... Then, in January 1947, when partition was not officially announced anywhere, Mountbatten not chosen yet to succeed Wavell, the best IVC artifacts arrived in New Delhi for an Inter-Regional Conference and mysteriously all came to be awarded to India. The other exhibits went back to the provincial museums, only the IVC (the best-known) remained in India. In 75 years no one has produced this document. If they were truly awarded to India, why did the Indians give the Priest-King to Pakistan in 1972? I am suggesting that this doesn't add up. Wikipedia cannot state something to be a fact when the evidence for it is so unreliable. Aparna Megan Kumar's UCLA thesis (to be published soon) may have something more on this saga. It is best to wait for it. Btw, there was a museum on Queensway, established and built in the early 1930s, the Central Asian Antiquities Museum, which housed Aurel Stein's collections. So, it is not that the Grand Imperial couldn't have been built earlier. Eventually, the National Museum came to incorporate the Central Asian as well. No one seems to ask why some of its collections were not given to Pakistan, seeing as many of Stein's journeys took place through what is today Pakistan. Anyway, I have to run. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:05, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PS All Partition-related topics need to be treated with great care on WP. It is the same with Kashmir. In that instance, the Indians do have a "document," which they never tire of brandishing—the Hindu maharaja's dawdling accession to India. But no Indian government has ever allowed (even) talk of a plebiscite in the Valley, where more than three-quarters of the Indian army is stationed. They have rationalizations for that too, supported by many liberal academics. Pakistan (West) is not much better either. But Wikipedia has an account in Kashmir that stands apart from either country's. It should be the same here. We can't state as fact a scenario for which we have only one source, an Indian, published nearly 65 years after the Partition. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:53, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PPS I just read the first post above in this thread. TrangaBelam's question "Can we say in WP's voice?" is spot on. You are doing this relentlessly. Also, what is this lazy, 19th-century style of citing you are using? No links, too much work for the reader. No South Asia-related articles use them. You better fall in line; otherwise, I will eventually hold up these articles on this issue alone. I mean I have no idea what you are up to. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:06, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PPPS "That statement," btw was the one about "famous" etc which I have rephrased and cited to Rita Wright 2009. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:16, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Changing the citation style on a well developed article, especially by a well established editor that you know for years, knowing it would be rejected, is hubris and a no-no in my book. Ceoil (talk) 09:47, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But @Ceoil: this is a spin-off created a month ago from the Indus Valley Civilisation article which has had an Sfn format for more than 10- years. Johnbod made his first edit on 3 June and I, upon discovering the article, on 18 June. There is only one precedent here—the parent article or the articles or the articles to which the article or the parent article refer, such as Mehrgarh, British Raj, Archeological Survey of India, They are all in Sfn, Cite book, cite journal, or citation formats. There are a number of errors in Johnbod's citations: Matthiae, P; Lamberg-Karlovsky, Carl Clifford is Paul Collins (his chapter in the book published by the Met (the picture caption for the P-K written by JMK (Kenoyer)); Kenoyer is really Kenoyer and Heuston; Harappa (which is a page of a PowerPoint presentation) is really page 215 of Mark K's 1998 magnum opus; it describes the plate Priest-King; I haven't entirely gotten rid of it: I'm using the Harappa picture in the Kenoyer 1998 URL. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:35, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Its not a "spin-off", its a new, substantial and separate article on a topic briefly mentioned in IVC. So has a right to establish its own citation style. I do however, like the new images you found and added. Ceoil (talk) 14:01, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
:) Well, I've known you a lot longer than I have Johnbod, so I'm not going to get into an argument with you, but note what is sauce for the goose etc: the Pashupati seal at the time of Johnbod's first edit; the Pashupati seal today. I'm not seeing the previous citation style being preserved. It is a lazy, old-fashioned, citation style, putting the burden of finding errors on the reader (which I had to). Sfn + citation would have prevented that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, about the images! I wish I could lay my hands on the high-res images somewhere (for my own edification). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:23, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Have never been much of a peacekeeper but know Johnbod even longer than I've known you, and this is one of those, hate it when friends fight situations. Frankly man I do think you are being a tad aggressive here, but look, maybe some give and take is now in order. Ceoil (talk) 14:34, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
:) Sounds good. I doubt that citation style itself can be much of a problem. There is really not much difference between his version and mine (Sfn), mainly only one of color, i.e. blue. In a sense, I have done the grunt work for him, making the citations user-friendly. A reader has only to click on the cite, and lo and behold they are transported to a book which they can flip through, instead of scrolling down themselves, then upon infirmly remembering the page number or the last name scroll back up to double-check, i.e. yo-yo. A bigger problem might be the references themselves. His were older; I swapped some for modern authors such as her and him. I was going to bring the older ones back in some fashion. I promise I will do so now more self-consiously, make it a big tent article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:02, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fowler, I am travelling at present, with a laptop I can't do serious editing on. So I can't respond properly to the various brands of nonsense above. Your 2nd attempt at redoing the lead seems much less bad than your first, but still has problems a plenty. Do'nt spend too much time building your big tent, you may find it collapsed around your ears. Johnbod (talk) 19:38, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hilarious! I see that once again the chosen scholar you have turned to to contradict something in fact says exactly the same! But more errors are being introduced. Johnbod (talk) 23:41, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, please don't get the notion that I'm trying to show you down, slow you down, put you down, or doing anything out of spite. I'm enjoying learning new things, and nothing at your expense. I respect you and hope we can collaborate. Just see the stuff I unearthed about K-P being the common term among Pakistanis, all deduced from the label in the "cast" picture. Not only did I find a common expression in Arabic-Persian-Urdu that is used in Pakistan for that statue (probably hearkening to the pre-Islamic Near East), but I found journal articles of Pakistani archaeologists using "KP." This is the only reason why I remain in WP, i.e. to have fun. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:10, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS In some ways it is a pity that the Priest-King interpretation has not survived. For it would have dealt a death blow to the notion that the Indus culture was Indo-Aryan (the favorite Hindutva Out-of-India fantasy). The priest in Indo-Aryan culture was of a different caste than a ruler. I'm sure this is written up somewhere. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:19, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PPS Btw, Johnbod, I had been meaning to compliment you on the phrasing of the DYK entry: "Did you know... that Indira Gandhi made Zulfikar Ali Bhutto choose between the sculptures Dancing Girl and Priest-King (pictured) to be returned to Pakistan in 1972?" I like "returned." Good thing it was done then; in the Hindu majoritarian, hyper-nationalist, India of today it wouldn't have happened. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PPPS Btw, the National Museum Delhi is soon to be torn down, if it hasn't been already. See (here)_ I am now done with this article. I have left liberal quotes from some modern sources (hard to find on the web) All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:58, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, Matthiae and Lamberg-Karlovsky is really the chapter by Paul Collins (though he seems to have done precious little writing; the catalog descriptions 272a, 272b, are by JMK(enoyer). Please integrate the old with the new. Kenoyer (1998) and Possehl (2002) are somewhat dated. Wright (2009) and Coningham (2015) more modern; their methodology is also more modern. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:51, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I knew that. Calling the source "Collins" is pointless; better to use the main authors. This means it is effectively "Kenoyer (2003)", so hardly ancient compared to "modern" Wright (2009); as far as I can see there can't be more than about 5 years between them in age either. Wright (which I can't see) has been a disappointing addition, adding nothing, and muddying various things. She seems to have no particular experience writing about art. There are aspects of the subject the article doesn't cover as I'd like, as I couldn't source them, but your "big tent" does not cover any of them. I'll make a list at some point. Generally we seem to have come round in a big circle as far as the actual text goes; you have now thought better of most of your original objections, presumably as you have read more; this is not the first time this has happened. I'm glad you are "enjoying learning new things", but it is a method of learning that is wearisome for the other editors. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please tell me what is the main that Matthiae and Lamberg-Karlovsky are the authors of? I haven't come around in any circle big or small. You had written a poorly sourced lead; the sourcing stands vastly improved. The learning things bit was a form of politeness, a response to Ceoil's caution to which you seem to grant scant notice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, back to the sources and working on the article constructively. Wright's book, in my view, and in those of some others, is the modern benchmark for Indus studies. Here are a few reviews: a) Schortman, Ed (2011). "The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society by Rita P. Wright". American Anthropologist. 113 (4): 692–693. b) Robin Coningham's review in the TLS. Coningham, himself, has written a book (which I have cited), but his text is not as rigorous as Wright's. Neither are any of Kenoyer's or Possehl's earlier works, both of which suffer from interesting but unvetted speculation. Her book has not only been published by CUP in their series, "Case Studies in Early Societies," she is also the General Editor of the Series. The Priest-king is primarily a topic in archaeology, only secondarily in art history. In other words, I do not consider all sources that have bearing on the subject of this statuette to be equally reliable. She is also a MacArthur Fellow for whatever that is worth. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:19, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, in that case it's a big pity that she doesn't actually have anything to say about the statue that differs from all the other sources, except for mildly wierd things like "Since all have been discovered in what appear to be residential contexts and no religious structures have been found at Indus sites, the attribution of 'Priest-King' by the earlier excavators has generally been rejected." One of the reviews you linked to above had a splendid anecdote about Marshall in 1904, that serves as an excellent reminder of the difficulties archies have in recognising religious forms from strange cultures (in the following review from the Wright one). I take it you have not actually had sight of Ardeleanu-Jansen (1991), which the archaeologists all seem to be following? There is no need to drag Ms Heuston into the text - she is a teacher and children's author who handled that side of the writing with Kenoyer; views on archaeological matters can be taken as entirely his own, & I see no reason why they should be less valid here than in his other, earlier, books. I don't know why I mistakenly credited Matthiae and Lamberg-Karlovsky with the main authorship - they did essays like Collins, but Aruz should be the main author. If "The Priest-king is primarily a topic in archaeology, only secondarily in art history", which of course is nonsense, then the archaeologists are falling down on the job badly, as there is remarkably little literature about it, even in the bibliographies etc of the stuff we can see. And no discernable development in views over the last 40 years or so, except for Coningham's dubious attempt to give a patriarchal spin (his review of Wright is surely pretty lukewarm, btw). Even Ardeleanu-Jansen (1991) seems only to be 12 pages or so, no doubt with notes and pictures. I have taken considerable notice btw, of Ceoil's objections above (before I had said anything) to your cite-banditry. Johnbod (talk) 01:02, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We are in a vacation home, still settling in, but without my books, so let me say a few things off the top of my head. Aruz is not the main author. As the bibliography entry says she is the editor, who wrote an introduction, but not the relevant chapter. The WP citation style (in cite book, citation) has an argument for editor and chapter author, not for mislabeling the editor as the author. The relevant anecdote is not the one in the second review. It is the mention at the beginning of the first review of the widespread habit among Indus scholars for discerning politics, religion, and ideology when none seems reliably present. Both archeologists (Stuart Piggot in the 1930s) and popular archaeology writers (Jane McIntosh, 21st century) have fallen victim to it. In contrast, as Coningham says, "Indeed, “The Ancient Indus” is a book by a prehistorian, using prehistoric materials, but one which attempts to push interpretation to its very limits with the assistance of contemporary Mesopotamian textssays."
The Priest-King is a minor subtopic in Indus studies, garnering barely one small paragraph in Wright's 400-odd page book. It points to a major problem with bad-faith spinoffs, articles that have not grown to any significant size within a parent article, but which are nonetheless turned into independent articles, and thereafter given heft by including every source available to an editor. The sources might include a junior-high-school book by two authors, an anthropologist of my former acquaintance (Mark Kenoyer) and a science and history writer (Kimberly Heuston); but in the long tradition of easy misogyny on Wikipedia, no compunction is experienced in referring to anything usable for padding this new article as simply Kenoyer, not Kenoyer and Heuston. The junior high school book is less valid because it has simple distorting blanket statements, without the corrective nuances that teenagers are unable to process. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:23, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
More new nonsense! The normal style for handling big exhibition catalogues (I have cited dozens) is to follow the title page & give the editor(s), plus if desired the author (if named) of the actual bit used. The Met describes Collins' contribution as an "essay"; if he had any role in the choice of the objects, & the writing of the entries, this is not made clear. I'm not surprized by your admission that Wright only gives "barely one small paragraph" to the work but puzzled why you don't see that this is an excellent reason not to displace sources from a very few years earlier that give much more space to it. You are looking at the wrong anecdote - the one I meant (set in Puri) had exactly the opposite import. The rest of your 2nd para is simply mad. I came across a trashy copyvio stub on the statue, which had long been on my list of missing articles, & decided to do it properly. If the Dancing Girl and proto-Siva seal desrve articles, are you saying this does not? Are you saying it (or all of them) should have been given a much longer treatment in the main IVC article? Of course not. Perhaps you could elaborate on how this is a "bad-faith spinoff"? Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Collins/JMK(enoyer)

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The quote, "The sculptor combined naturalistic detail with stylized forms to create a powerful image that appears much bigger than it actually is." is Mark Kenoyer's which I have reinstated. He has written the catalog description. The chapter (Cities of the Indus or somesuch) is written/edited by Paul Collins who was then a Research Associate in the Near Eastern Art department of the Met. He is now the Curator of the Near Eastern dept at the Ashmolean. (here) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:36, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

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  • I may have begun the unfortunate tradition on Wikipedia of using IVC way back when in 2007, or at least I may have been the first to boldface it. Anyway, I just checked the six or seven reliable books we are using in this article and "IVC" appears nowhere in them. I will make a post at Talk:Indus Valley Civilisation at some point, but I'm guessing we should minimize the use of the term. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:58, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Johnbod: or @Ceoil: Now I really am done. We are moving for the summer, so I'll be off Wiki for some time. I don't mind what you do with the article. The sources are in the record, as is the citation style. I personally don't favor the honorifics either, the Sirs, Lords, or Rao Bahadurs, but I've reinstated them in the lead. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:30, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I find this hard to take, but thanks a bunch, if only for availing of the flu/sudden emergency/holidays form of back-tracking, while others repair. It seems a lot of energy was wasted....for what....the sake of argument? Ceoil (talk) 03:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ceoil, please don't assume that I caved and am attempting to save face. I said that only to be polite. The article was littered with errors, patched together with poor sources, some scraped from plate descriptions in a dated art-history coffee-table book published for an exhibition in 2003. I examined the book's citations on Google Scholar. Although the book as a whole is cited 290 times, its Indus Section is cited barely 25 times; most citations are to Akkadian material, Gilgamesh, i.e. topics with no bearing on South Asia. Contrast that with Rita Wright's 306 citations, all with something relevant to Indus. Contrast that also with the Junior High School book that Johnbod likes to refer to only by the name of its male co-author (on some spurious excuse unoffered yet on WP). It has 35 citations. The article should not have been turned into an independent page. When people do that, DUE becomes an issue. Kenoyer and Heuston have a half page box in which a discussion of the priest-king can be found. Rita Wright has one paragraph as I say above in a book of 400 pages. The Indus was not known for its stone statuettes (totaling less than a dozen; rather, it was known for its elaborate drainage system, its brick buildings made with a bond that was rediscovered thousands of years later as the Flemish. Its crafts were mainly, beads, necklaces, basketry, terra cotta statuettes, not stone. When people pick a lesser-known aspect of a topic and give it independent heft, they do a disservice Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So your position seems to be: it's a topic in archaeology, but the good archaeologists aren't interested in it, only the bad, bad ones. So we shouldn't have an article on it at all, even though it is attracting over 100 views per day. WP:AFD is that way. Good luck! Johnbod (talk) 13:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not convinced by the harsh claim of "littered with errors, patched together with poor sources". A heavy accusation, not reflective of [your] work since the first engagement, which has manifested via changes in citation formats, and other niceties. Ceoil (talk) 01:04, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After a month, Johnbod has reverted to an old version cited to dated colonial sources, that no modern archaeologist worth their salt would use, other than to pay lip service in a sentence or two in the review of the literature. If you are going to edit war, I'm sure there are plenty archaeologists on WP, who I'll be happy to ask to weigh in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:37, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PS The article had gone from this modern version with up to date sourcing in Sfn format to this late colonial version hearkening to the last gasps of the British empire in India with a abysmally lazy, antediluvian style of sourcing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as promised above, your cite-banditry has been reverted. All the main sources in both versions are Americans, of pretty much the same age. The ones I prefer actually have things to say about the piece, unlike Wright. Please stop this tiresome nonsense. Your behaviour on this page has been appalling, & I suggest you stop it. Johnbod (talk) 01:04, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Robin Coningham and Ruth Young, whom you have removed, authors of The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE, Cambridge University Press, 2015 are both British and younger than Rita P. Wright (author of Ancient Indus, Cambridge University Press, 2009) whom you have also taken out and who is American. Wright is older than J. Mark Kenoyer (author of Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Oxford University Press, 1998); both are younger than Gregory Possehl, also American. Bridget Allchin and F. Raymond Allchin (authors of The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, Cambridge, 1982), whom you have also removed, are both British and older than Possehl. What do the ages of the authors have to do with their work being reliable? That Rita Wright has nothing to say is a bit of an exaggeration considering she is also the chief editor of the CUP series Case Studies in Early Societies (see here) As far as I'm aware, getting a MacArthur Fellowship is no mean achievement, especially when you win it along with Michael Baxandall, Thomas Pynchon and Max Roach.(here) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adam S. Green (Cambridge) whose paper (on killing the P-K etc) you have cited, has written this celebration of Wright's lifework: Introducing Urbanism, Technology, and Identity: Celebrating the Comparative Archaeology of Rita P. Wright. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, let's quote the summary of that: "the many threads of Rita P. Wright’s contributions to archaeology. Prof. Wright has established a suite of concepts and critiques that generate a comparative framework that is not restricted to a single geographical area. In her early work on ceramic production and craft, Wright synthesized the anthropology of technology with the archaeology of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, laying the foundation for a technological approach that transformed the archaeology of South Asia. Her critical re-evaluation of early cities, states, and complex societies incorporated past people and groups previously omitted from investigation, bringing to the forefront the political and economic dimensions of households and other social entities. Her work also drove the archaeology of identity and gender, correcting traditional approaches that too often left humanity out of explanations of the past. She has also established a landscape approach that examines the social relations that connected the city of Harappa to its many surrounding settlements, she has revealed rural/urban interactions that drove the emergence and transformation of urbanism. The impact of these contributions is ongoing, and has set the agenda for a new generation of comparative archaeology." - a busy and no doubt distinguished career, but interest in art history is not mentioned, & the lack of it is suggested by the very little she has to say about this object. I don't say "Rita Wright has nothing to say", I say she has nothing original or useful to say about this object - as your use of her short paragraph demonstrates. I've quoted one non sequitur remark of hers above. On "What do the ages of the authors have to do with their work being reliable?" - not much at this scale of difference, but it was you who introduced the ridiculous idea that mine was "an old version cited to dated colonial sources", a "late colonial version hearkening to the last gasps of the British empire in India", and so on, in your rants above. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did not make up the part about British colonial views. Robin Coningham and Ruth Young did in their book. Do you seriously want to take me on about content? I will reinstate the tags now and we can invite archaeologists such as user:Joe Roe and others to weigh in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you think Rita Wright has nothing original or useful to say about this subject, perhaps you will consider that Adam Green, the author of "Killing the Priest‑King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization," whom you have cited, received his PhD under Wright at NYU, and he has this to say in the acknowledgments of the article, "This paper was shaped by long-running discussions I have had with Rita Wright ..." Please don't be grandiose. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keettle to pot! If you've read that Green piece, as I have, you will know that the sculpture itself is only given a passing mention at the start, & that only to justify the "hooky" title; the rest of the piece is all about social structure & so on - Wright's home turf. Johnbod (talk) 13:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit-history

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If anyone is interested, I took this version of the article, & worked on it here, before moving it back. Johnbod (talk) 01:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As you will see in this diff, on the 26 of June, I began to edit the article, adding "in use." Between then and 6 July 2021 I made 95 edits and you made two. You made your next edit a month later i.e. today. (See here) Now you are telling us that on 12 July 2021, you worked on the version of 22 June on a subpage of your user page. Something is not adding up logic-wise. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:14, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If an editor works on something more or less in secret for 43 minutes, then tucks it under their pillow and goes to sleep for three weeks, whose problem is it? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:18, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Johnbod, I like you. But I am perplexed by this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, I've removed the tags, but I hope you will do a better job of incorporating the sources and viewpoints which you have removed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:14, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I said higher up that your gross and unrepentant violations of WP:CITEVAR, about which User:Ceoil also protested, would not stand. There were various other issues with your version, which it is probably not useful to go into now. Like you, I have been on holiday, and busy with other things. Unlike you, I am able (in fact rather forced by the absence of a proper desktop m/c), to leave WP alone, which you keep saying you will do, but don't. I like "more or less in secret" - nice touch! Johnbod (talk) 12:52, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Tags

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Ok, now you've tagged it again, for accuracy and neutrality. You need to state very clearly, in bullet points, what bits of the article you are objecting to, and why. No rants, long discursions into modern Indo-Pak relations, or personal recollections please, just clear statements, with refs of course. Johnbod (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I know this will involve actually reading the article, but there you are. Johnbod (talk) 14:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]


  • your version of the lead 22 June,
  • my version 100 edits later of 3 July 2021, and
  • your reversion of yesterday 5 August 2021. Let's start with the lead:
  • Sentence 1: My version was: The '''''Priest-King''''' (also '''''King-Priest''''' in Pakistan.{{sfn|Mughal|2012|p=7|ps= "The facial features of many local people in Sindh very much resemble those of the famous 'King Priest‛ of Mohenjo-daro."}}{{sfn|Yang|Hameed|Sameer|2020|p=90|ps= " During these surveys, many artifacts were documented and among those artifacts, the King-Priest bust (Figure 5) is a crucial one."}}) is a [[Bronze Age]] statue carved from steatite, or [[soapstone]], and excavated in 1925–26 at the site of [[Mohenjo-daro]], a principal urban settlement of the [[Indus Valley Civilisation]].{{sfn|Green|2021|p=155|ps=  " the 17.5-cm statuette commonly called the 'priest-king'"}}{{sfn|Possehl|2012|pp=478–|ps= "Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, 400 (643 km) to the northeast, are the two principal excavated cities of Indus or Harappan civilization"}}
  • Sentence 1 (your version of June 22): The '''''Priest-King''''' is a [[Soapstone|steatite]] sculpture found during the excavation of the ruined [[Bronze Age]] city of [[Mohenjo-daro]] in [[Sindh]], [[Pakistan]], in 1925–26.
  • Sentence 1 (your version of August 5): The '''''Priest-King''''', in Pakistan often '''''King-Priest''''',<ref>See for example the museum label illustrated below</ref> is a [[Soapstone|steatite]] sculpture found during the excavation of the ruined [[Bronze Age]] city of [[Mohenjo-daro]] in [[Sindh]], [[Pakistan]], in 1925–26.
  • I had added proper citations in Sfn format and with quotes from authors, which would have enabled any reader to see the quality of the paraphrasing and of the sourcing. Your citation says, "See for example the museum label illustrated below." I'm assuming the reference is to the caption I had added in this section. The caption was about the Urdu label. It suggested that it was not a literal translation of the English, but rather of independent notability in Urdu. It does not constitute a citation, especially not when we are going to use "often."
  • I had written "also King-Priest in Pakistan," which is shorthand for "In Pakistan it is sometimes also called Priest-King." We know nothing about how often. My statement was cited among others to Mohammad Rafique Mughal, a major IVC scholar, whom also you have removed.
  • "sculpture" in your versions is nominally accurate but also misleading. "Sculpture" today primarily refers to large objects, not tiny statuettes. (OED: Now chiefly used with reference to work in stone (esp. marble) or bronze (similar work in wood, ivory, etc. being spoken of as carving), and to the production of figures of considerable size. Thus to apply the term, e.g. to die-sinking or to stone-carving on a small scale would now be regarded as a transferred use."
  • "the ruined Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, in 1925–26"
  • The Bronze Age city was not Sindh, Pakistan, in 1925–26. Neither Sindh (with that spelling) nor Pakistan had existed then.
  • The ruined Bronze age city was not in Sindh, Pakistan in 1925-26, but in Sind (with that spelling) in British India. So what are we referring to here? We are referring to a site which is what my version states.
  • "the excavations:" the definite article assumes some previous reference in the text, or a reference to something very well-known. The M-d excavations (proper use of the definite article here) were not well-known. Even if I wanted to keep the sentence, which I don't, it would have to be: "during excavation," "during excavations," or "during an excavation."
  • "excavation of the ruined Bronze Age city" is redundant. If you are excavating a city of the Bronze Age, how does it matter that it is ruined? Can there be excavations of a pristine Bronze Age city?
  • My version mentions the Indus Valley Civilization from the get-go; yours does not. It has no mention of the culture the city represented.
  • I mean what can I salvage from this sentence? Nothing. And this is just the first sentence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your changes to the citation style were completely against WP:CITEVAR, as both Ceoil and I pointed out at the time. Nor do they have anything to do with the "accuracy" or "neutrality" of the text - please stick to the point.
  • "Sculpture" is absolutely the correct word for a carving that is not at all a "tiny statuette". As it is, it is 7.5 inches tall, & when complete was very likely some 15 inches (assuming a sitting/kneeling posture, as the sources do). Furthermore, as you know perfectly well, all the sources use the term for these larger pieces, and not for the small terracottas. Your version, otoh, following Wright, called the sculpture a "bust", which is wrong for its current shape, and doubly wrong for the presumed original one - your version also left it unclear which the statement was supposed to refer to. This is the only one of your points that actually bears on "accuracy", and you are completely wrong, I'm afraid. You must accept I'm more likely to be right about such terminology than you are. Btw, I once mentioned an OED definition of this sort to a very senior British Museum curator, & she snorted with scorn at the idea of using them as a source. I pointed out another definition which was downright wrong to the OED themselves, & they cheerily accepted the definition (written in about 1880) was wrong, & assured me it would be corrected in about 20 years or so (it was a "C" word, & their revision is working out from the middle of the alphabet). Here the OED are mainly right, but this piece is not caught by their strictures. The use of the antique term "die-sinking" suggests this is also some 140 years old.
  • I'm very suspicious of the ethnic continuity stuff, and don't think it should be included, most especially in the first sentence. As you may know, Kenoyer & others emphasise instead the wide diversity of facial, and by extension ethnic, types found in the IVC (I'm also rather dubious about that).
  • "the ruined Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro" is still "in Sindh, Pakistan". It's true it wasn't in Pakistan in 1926, & I could throw in a "now", but frankly I don't think its necessary. It's also still ruined. It's true this is rather common for Bronze Age cities, but I don't see how not saying so is an issue of accuracy or neutrality.
  • There is nothing wrong with "during the excavation" (which you misquote - no "s"), & your alternatives of "during excavation," "during excavations," or "during an excavation" are all a good deal worse, imo. The meaning is clear in any case. Again, there's no issue of accuracy or neutrality - please stick to the point. The same goes for me not mentioning the Indus Valley Civilisation until (gasp!) the second sentence and line.
  • You'll have to do better than this. Remember, accuracy and neutrality are what we are discussing.

Johnbod (talk) 17:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK if you insist on your opaque citation style, then I'll add specific requests for exact quotes which you have attempted to paraphrase. It will be much more work for you every step of the way.
  • There will be POV-related questions as well: Why, for example, you are calling the junior-high-school book of Kenoyer (male) and Heuston (female) only by the first author's last name?
  • The OED note on "sculpture" is relatively new, dating to the second edition of 1989. If you are going to use sculpture then it needs to be qualified with "small" or somesuch adjective. It is an easy check on Google that "Priest-king statue" is preferred to "priest-king sculpture" by 5 to 1.
  • The quote is not about ethnic continuity, only about the use of "King-Priest." It can be reduced to "t... he famous 'King Priest‛ of Moheenjo-daro:
  • Not clear at all. Before the excavations, the city had not visibly fallen into ruin (the common meaning of ruined); it was buried; it was undiscovered.
  • I'm talking about the use of "the." Generally, we can't use it before something that we haven't mentioned before. Although there are all sorts of exceptions, the definite article assumes a previous mention in the text (e.g. A hurricane swept along the coast last night. This morning the hurricane caused power outages ...)), a particularization by a nearby adjective, phrase or clause or verb complement (the last great hope of man on earth), or universal familiarity by the reader (the universe, the sun, the queen, ...) As there is no previous mention, there were many excavations for many seasons, and the "ruined Bronze Age city, etc" is not well known, your sentence causes issues of coherence or at the very least of much-delayed comprehension. I'm sure I can find references.
  • My sentence, "... is a Bronze Age statue carved from steatite, or soapstone, and excavated in 1925–26 at the site of Mohenjo-daro, a principal urban settlement of the Indus Valley Civilisation," avoids all these issues. (Note: As Dholavira, an IVC city in India, has recently become a UNESCO World Heritage site, the second in IVC, I can easily add "in Pakistan" to disambiguate further.
  • The AmE to CommonwealthE conversions are easily done. Grammarly will do it en masse. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ceoil, imprecise writing is inaccurate writing. Even if I had to use Johnbod's sentence, with "the," I would write it as: "The Priest-King is a steatite sculpture found in 1925–26 during the excavation of Mohenjo-daro, a ruined Bronze Age city in Sindh, Pakistan." The appositive defining Mohenjo-daro needs to be an indefinite noun phrase. (Here, for example, is the great genius of the British English corpus, Sidney Greenbaum, in Oxford English Grammer, OUP, 2011, p 165, "The definite article is used when the speaker (or writer) assumes that the hearer (or reader) can identify the reference of the noun phrase." This has nothing to do with the differences between AmE and BrE. As for "sculpture," I mean seriously we have a six-inch statuette. You can see the man in the excavation pit holding it up. It is barely visible. Even if there are some recondite conventions in art history of calling every carved object a sculpture, what is the lower limit in size? Can I say "I will whittle a wooden sculpture of a ladybug tonight" or something similar about a stone version? Readers do not like surprises of comprehension. That is the basic problem here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:48, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Its the six-inch remains of a sculpture, not a six-inch statuette. Ceoil (talk) 04:39, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • [ec]. "The definite article is used when the speaker (or writer) assumes that the hearer (or reader) can identify the reference of the noun phrase." - now you are clearly grasping at straws (ref also "more or less in secret". Much as I like you F, and generally value your opinion (we have had battles before! and remained friends), your bludgeoning here to win a skirmish, I think. The substantial points raised earlier have been met, and so have removed the pointy tags. Ceoil (talk) 02:07, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The trouble is, the rather more precise term "statue", which your version uses, is much more likely to mislead than "sculpture", both in terms of shape and size. Do you actually have any sources calling it a "statue"? Your version had one using "statuette", but to my mind it's also rather too large to be a "statuette", though there's no precise definition of that. I'm completely sure that "sculpture" is the most suitable term. Kenoyer's fairly short catalogue entry uses the word "sculpture" NINE times, and "statue" or "statuette" ZERO. The ladybird (Engvar outside Nth America) would best be called a "carving", but that implies wood. I've adjusted the first sentence as suggested above (including "small"). Johnbod (talk) 03:51, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ceoil: All we have is a very small human bust or upper body in soapstone, which as the name suggests, is soft; it can be scratched with your nail. It was thereafter heat treated to harden it. People have speculated that it is the bust or torso of a slightly larger seated human figure, but nothing is certain. Everyone uses "may be" everywhere. The general meaning of "sculpture" is something taller than six inches, and not just in stone. The Wood Sculpture of Henry Moore refers to large pieces in seasoned wood made by using tools of carpentry, not small pieces in raw wood carved with a whittling knife. Scholars have used many words in the literature for describing the P-K: "bust," "figure," "statue," "sculpture," "statuette," "fragment of" and so forth. But the question is what is appropriate for the lead sentence when a reader encounters the description for the first time. I'm suggesting that in the literature it is most often "statue." Obviously, authors worry about communication more than outdated conventions of this field or that. PS I've just woken up. After coffee, I'll make a short list some of which is already in my version. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:18, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here are a few.
Scholarly and popular references that use "statue" or "statuette" to describe the Priest-King
  • Green, Adam S. (2020). "Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization". Journal of Archaeological Research. 29 (2): 153–202. doi:10.1007/s10814-020-09147-9. ISSN 1059-0161. It is telling that the 17.5-cm statuette commonly called the "priest-king"—one of the few pieces of evidence of their supposed existence—is now believed to be evidence of interaction with neighboring societies, not the talisman of a military elite (e.g., Vidale 2018a)
  • Gregory L. Possehl (2002), The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, Rowman Altamira, pp. 114–116, ISBN 978-0-7591-0172-2, ... the so-called priest-king from Mohenjo-daro. This 'steatite' bust was found by Dikshit during the 1925-1926 season (p. 114) A Parpola attempts to demonstrate that the robe of the priest-king is something called tarpya ... Parpola postulates that this statue is a representation of a seated deity (p. 115) Ardeleanu-Jansen has created an interesting reconstruction of the priest-king as a statue of a seated man.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:11, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A good deal of cherry-picking here:
Jane McIntosh uses "sculpture" of the piece immediately afterwards.
So does Mukhtar Ahmed, and so does Vidale (quoted next section, Treasures, p. 56).
Possehl's discussion of the group of figures (pp 112-116) found at M-d uses "sculpture" eight times, including for the P-K and for smaller figures.
And so on.... Green, Coningham & Young, & Parpola only mention the piece in passing. If you are trying to show that the piece can be described as a "statue", I suppose you have succeeded. If you are trying to show that it must be so described for accuracy, or that the majority of RS coverage so describes it, you have not. Btw, we have an article monumental sculpture, covering the large stuff that you seem to think is all that "sculpture" means - that is the appropriate term for this. Johnbod (talk) 15:30, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your question was "Do you actually have any sources calling it a "statue"?" Please don't change the question after I've answered it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you've answered it. But my point remains. Johnbod (talk) 16:25, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See section below

Ceoil: I saw your edit summaries, "to be clear, the shifting lines of attack indicates hubris, and a stark unwillingness to concede on even the most minor of points," and earlier, "you are making a fool of yourself; so many lines of attack on talk, all refuted." Please understand that I was applying the same degree of rigor when you and Johnbod were nowhere in sight in late June and early July. I am applying the same rigor to Great Bengal famine of 1770, where no one is in sight, worrying in a similar fashion about terms, usage, and grammar. You'll have to figure out that neither you nor Johnbod is a factor here, only your arguments are if arguments are made. People remind me years later that I bruised them, was nice to them, was kind or unkind. I never remember that; I have no memory of interactions, only of the content. It is the nature of the beast (I am). It is not hubris, although I understand that people might view it as that. False pride is not involved; that is why I never worry about making a fool of myself. See the "Eiffel Tower of third-party sources" (as someone put it). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

F&f's sources

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Here is a list of sources, which are useful. Please do not edit the list. There is a discussion section below in which you may comment if you wish. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:25, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Remember Lamberg-Karlovsky? She was probably Martha L-K (I haven't gone back and checked). Another L-K, probably her husband or father, C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, the Stephen Phillips Research Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology, Emeritus at Harvard has written an article on bronze-age archaeology of the Indo-Iranian borderlands. He not only calls P-K a statue but has also assessed most scholars to consider it to be Central-Asian in origin per M. Vidale ("A P-K at Shahr-i-Sokhta" etc; my sense is that Vidale isn't quite that categorical, but so be it ...) : Mutin, Benjamin; Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. (17 November 2020), "BMAC and the Indo-Iranian borderlands", in Bertille Lyonnet, Nadezhda A Dubova (ed.), The World of the Oxus Civilization, Routledge, pp. 566–, ISBN 978-1-351-75783-6, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: ... They consist of seals and sealing impressions as well as the well-known 'priest-king' statue at the former, one that has long symbolized the Indus Civilization and that is nowadays recognized by most scholars as an item of Central Asian origin</ref>
  • In the same volume, Shereen Ratnagar has a chapter. She calls L 950 (the headless torso 272b which is 22cm (11 inches) tall found at M-d, a "statue;" she disagrees with L-K and Vidale: Ratnagar, Shereen (17 November 2020), "The worlds of South Asia and Central Asia", in Bertille Lyonnet, Nadezhda A Dubova (ed.), The World of the Oxus Civilization, Routledge, pp. 590–606, ISBN 978-1-351-75783-6, Note 1: Archaeologists have found similarities between a headless seated stone statue (L 950) from Mohenjo-daro and an embossed silver cup from Bactria with seated men ... I doubt, however, the cultural content of this seeming similarity. Only three men on the silver vessel have their right hand on the right knee, their garments are patterned but not so the plain cloth that covers statue L 950, and it is only the "priest king" of Mohenjo-daro who wears an embroidered shawl. More importantly the silver containter has no provenance--it was purchased in the Kabul bazaar.
  • Vidale himself says, "G. Possehl (2002: 115) ascribes to M. Wheeler the coinage or adoption of the term “Priest-King” (Fig. 5). Such definition ... immediately gained a vast popularity (mainly in absence of better terms) and is still quite frequently used. But, obviously enough, it has no scientific ground. Greg was quite straight in refusing it ("Neither a priest nor a king, let alone both") and quite correctly ascribed the term to Wheeler's generally biased view (1997) of the Indus Civilization. J. Marshall's discussion of the statuettes ' fragments of the Mohenjo Daro series (1931: 44) had been largely inconclusive, in that he thought of ideal representations of “…a conventional type of deity or religious teacher in vogue at the time”, perhaps a yogin. ... However, we known too little to state with confidence whether the damaged Mohenjo-Daro stone statuettes, together with the misnamed “Priest King”, should be eventually labelled “Bactrian” or “Harappan”, or something else; but the general use of the Mohenjo-Daro “Priest-King” as a symbolic icon of the Indus Civilization needs to be considered in a different light. In their stylistic heterogeneity, the statuettes of the Mohenjo-Daro series, as argued by Kenoyer, might have belonged to a minority group of the urban population, and possibly might have been made in different centers and regions outside the Indus core area." See:Vidale, Massimo (2018). "A "Priest King" at Shahr-i Sokhta?". Archaeological Research in Asia. 15: 110–115. doi:10.1016/j.ara.2017.12.001. ISSN 2352-2267. I'm assuming that the damaged stone statuettes included L 950 which was 22 cm tall. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:06, 7 August 2021 (UTC) Updated[reply]
  • Although Vadale uses "fragmented stone sculpture" in reference to some other items in his memorial dedication to Arleaneau-Janison, he uses "statuettes" later. You are right "statue" has some of the same issues size-wise as "sculpture." I'm wondering if we should change it to "statuette," as it seems to be also widely used in the literature, and without similar issues of interpretation. (OED: "statuette: A small statue or figurine; a statue that is less than life-size. 2011 T. Stovall in T. Price-Thompson et al. My Blue Suede Shoes 126 He wrestles the golden Emmy statuette from my hand and sets it gently back onto the mantlepiece. (This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2012; most recently modified version published online September 2018).)" I checked the Emmy is 15.5 inches tall. Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Massimo Vidale, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Padua, has this to say: Vidale, Massimo (2017), Treasures from the Oxus: The Art and Civilization of Central Asia, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 56–, ISBN 978-1-83860-976-4, Finally, we have to mention another mystery - that of the so-called 'Priest King'. The name is purely conventional; nobody knows who or what the statue originally represented. The fragmentary stone statuette that bears this name, found in the lower town of Mohenjo-Daro, is universally recognized as a masterpiece and a symbol of the Indus Civilization. It is the most finished of a series of similar figures, generally poorly preserved, if not intentionally vandalized, representing probably the same kneeling male personage, with one knee down and the other up, sometimes bearded, with a tunic-like dress that left the right shoulder bare. Once it is compared with the bearded males that appear on the Oxus silver vessels in the precise same position, the strong similarity of the 'Priest King' to these images is beyond dispute. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:32, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sharon Steadman, Professor of Anthropology at SUNY Steadman: Steadman, Sharon R. (2016), Archaeology of Religion: Cultures and Their Beliefs in Worldwide Context, Routledge, pp. 210–, ISBN 978-1-315-43388-2, There is one bit of evidence in the form of a statue found at Mohenjo Daro (Figure 13.2), known as the Priest-King. It depicts a bearded man wearing an embroidered robe covering one shoulder and a headband with a circular symbol on his forehead. Some suggest his narrowed eyes imply he is in a state of meditation, and the covering of one shoulder is, in later times, a sign of reverence to a deity. That the statue depicts an important person is likely; whether it represents a king who was also a priest is harder to document. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The late archaeologist Inez During Caspers (Leiden) in her iconographic assessment wrote: During Caspers, E.C.L (1985). "The 'Priest King' from Moenjo-daro: An Iconographic Assessment" (PDF). Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale. 45 (1): 19–24. Since the discovery in the 1920s of the Indus Civilization, the most famous of all finds from the Indus Valley sites is the much discussed, 'Priest King' from Moenjo-daro (Pls. I–IV). This steatite statuette (Dk 1909–50.852) in the round was found in Room I, Block 2 Section B of the Dk Area at Moenjo-daro at a depth of 1.37 metres and is supposed to be of a late date, which the late Sir Mortimer Wheeler found consistent with the exaggerated stylization. One may, however, keep an open mind for the possibility that the Indus Civilization consisted of more than one ethnic component, each being responsible for certain cultural expressions and either being contemporaneous or being more widely spaced over the long span of existence of this enigmatic culture and therefore only partly overlapping each other. The 'exaggerated stylization' of the 'Priest King' may be one example of this hypothesis and there may well exist no connection between the high level in the old excavations, the supposedly consequential late 3rd (or even early 2nd) millennium B.C. date and the style and mode of execution. The 'Priest King' statuette shows the head and shoulders of a male, found jaggedly broken off about the waist. It is now mounted and its present height is 17.7 cms. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • During Caspers has some interesting (if slightly unfocused) pictures (with scale) at the end of her assessment, taken I'm assuming in Pakistan after the statue was returned there from India in 1972. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Pakistani archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani, who excavated Mohenjo-daro with Wheeler in 1945, (see this section of IVC) and B. K. Thapar, and Indian archaeologist and a former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India write in the UNESCO series:
  • Dani, A. H.; Thapar, B. K. (1 June 1993), "The Indus Civilization", in A. H. Dani, V. M. Masson (ed.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The Dawn of Civilization : Earliest Times to 700 B.C., UNESCO, ISBN 978-92-3-102719-2, The third is a highly sophisticated bust of a man (Fig. 4), with his beard trimmed, upper lip shaven, half-closed eyes looking at the tip of a sharp nose, hair combed and held by a gold fillet, ears imitating a shell design, a ring armlet on his right arm, and a shawl over his body except for the right shoulder. The shawl is decorated with a trefoil design. It is this statue that has been taken to be a 'priest king' though we have no evidence of any priestly dominance in the Indus Civilization. The statuettes, seals, terracotta figurines and several other decorative objects also reveal the artistic trends of the time. A total number of eleven stone statuettes have been recovered at Mohenjo-daro, nine of which are human or parts of human figures and two are animals. One human is made of steatite, two humans are of alabaster and the remainder are of limestone. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:57, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same pattern in the use of secondary and tertiary meaning of "sculpture" is found in Wheeler:

Wheeler, Mortimer (1968), The Indus Civilization, Cambridge University Press Archive, pp. 86–88, ISBN 978-0-521-06958-8

  • The most monumental products of the Indus civilization are the stone sculptures (group description). Apart from two disputed statuettes from Harappa, eleven pieces of statuary (mass noun) have come to light, of which three represent animals. Seriatim they are as follows:
    1 The head and shoulders of a bearded man, the whole fragment 7 inches high, carved in steatite. It was found at Mohenjo-daro in the DK Area at a depth of only 4 feet, ... It occurs on a red stone stand and frequently on beads of steatite-paste, where as on the statue the trefoils were filled and backed with red paint. ... The analogues from Egypt and Mesopotamia at least combine to suggest a religious and in particular an astral connotation for the motif, and support the conjecture that the Mohenjo-daro bust may portray a deity or perhaps a priest-king. 2. Badly weathered limestone head, 5 1/2 inches high ... 3. Limestone head, nearly 7 inches high. ... 4. Limestone head, 7 3/4 inches high ... 5. Seated alabaster male figure, 11 1/2 inches high ... 6. Much-weathered alabaster statue of a squatting man, 16 1/2 inches high. ... 7. Fragment of a limestone figurine ... 8. Much-weathered fragment of a squatting or seated figure of limestone now 8 1/2 inches high. ... 9. Unfinished limestone figure of a squatting man, 8 1/2 inches high. ... 10. Fragment of a small limestone figurine of an animal, 4 1/2 inches high 11. ... Limestone figure, 10 inches high, of a composite animal. Of the eleven stone sculptures (group description) listed above, it will be observed that four or five represent a stereotyped squatting figure, presumably of a god. To the same divine category may be ascribed the composite animal, and in all probability, the bust with the trefoiled garment. Two or three of the human figures are apparently unfinished. All sculptures (group description) are derived from the higher and presumably later levels
  • "Sculptures" is used for the plural at the beginning and the end (as is "statuary" as a mass noun in the beginning). The specific descriptors applied to the Priest-King are "bust," (2) and "statue" (1) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:33, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sculpture" makes an appearance in the text as a mass noun: "Stone sculpture (mass noun) is very rare an often comparatively undeveloped however excellent unique pieces may be; terracotta sculpture (mass noun) was not exploited as it was in Mesopotamia (p. 212) (here)
  • "figure" and "figurine" (a dimunitive of figure) makes an appearance 13 times. (e.g. A second figure of comparable size also comes from Mohenjo-daro; bronze figure of a dancing girl, 10.2 cm)(here) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:12, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Official account of the Mohenjo-daro excavation

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In the official account of the Mohenjo-daro excations, published in 1931 and edited by John Marshall, Marshall, Sahni, and Mackay pretty much use only statue. Occasionally, they use figure (which I'm now finding increasingly attractive as I'm finding it sprouting up elsewhere); for the mass noun they use "statuary". I'm beginning to suspect that "sculpture" is later usage, perhaps the handiwork of Mortimer Wheeler and Mark Kenoyer. Here is Marshall et al's volume I:

The plates are in Marshall et al volume 3:

Examples:

  • In a city as cosmopolitan as Mohenjo-daro, with elements in its population drawn from at least four different races, the dress of the people was probably as varied as their personal appearance, but unfortunately our evidence on the subject is at present very scanty. The two statues illustrated in Pls. XCVIII and C, 1-3, show us a male figure wearing a long shawl, which was drawn over the left shoulder and under the right, so as to leave the right arm free, and, in the latter case at any rate, was ample enough to cover the seated figure down to its feet. Whether a tunic of any sort or a loin-cloth was worn beneath this shawl, there is as yet no evidence to show. p 33
  • Human statues and statuettes of stone: When we turn from the animal to the human form, the meagreness of our material makes it more difficult to estimate what the Indus artist was capable of. The terra-cotta figurines are of no help ; for, whether genre or sacred, they are all too roughly and carelessly fashioned to come within the category of art. ‘The stone images, too, are few and sadly mutilated ; indeed, the only ones in a tolerable state of preservation are the three figured in Pls. XCVIII, XCIX, 4-6, and C, 1-3, and described in detail by Mr. Mackay on Pp. 356-9. Of these the first is of steatite finished with a coating of hard white paste. It represents someone seemingly in the pose of a yogi, and it is for this reason that the eyelids are more than half closed and the eyes looking downward to the tip of the nose. I do not, however, think that the thick lips, broad-based nose, low forehead, and short, stunted neck are meant to reproducc the features of any individual ; nor do I think that this head is typical of any particular racial stock. Probably it represents nothing more than a conventional type of deity or religious teacher in vogue at the time. page 44
  • Even before the discovery of this seal Rai Bahadur Ramaprasad Chanda had pointed out that the head of the male statue from Mohenjo-daro illustrated in Pl. XCVIII has its eyes concentrated on the tip of the nose, and had concluded—with remarkable intuition—that it was portrayed in an attitude of yoga. Probably it is the statue of a priest or may be of a king-priest, since it lacks the horns which would naturally be expected if it were a figure of the deity himself. That it possessed a religious or quasi-religious character is suggested by the distinctive trefoil patterning of its robe—a motif which in Sumer is reserved for objects of a sacral nature. p 54
  • The fine steatite statue illustrated in Pl. XCVIII was found in one of the passages below the floor level. This could hardly have been the place for such an object: it probably rolled here when the walls fell in. p. 237
  • Half-closed eyes: Nos. 15 and 16 (LL 722) are two views of a figure which also seems to be a child’s work: The eyes are very elongated and represented by means of a horizontally incised line as half-closed, resembling in this respect the eyes of the steatite statue seen in Pl. XCVIII. p. 343
  • Section heading: Human Figures. Male statue Pl. XCVIII, 1-4 (DK 1909). Material, steatite. Found in Chamber 1, Block 2, Section B, of the DK Area at a level of 4 ft. 6 in. below the surface of the ground. Probably of the Late Period. <be/>Portrait figure. This is by far the finest piece of statuary that has been found at Mohenjo-daro. It looks like an attempt at portraiture, and represents the head and shoulders of a male figure. The lower portion is missing and also a part of the back of the head. It is now 7 inches high. Shawl. The figure is draped in an elaborate shawl with corded or rolled-over edge, worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm. This shawl is decorated all over with a design of trefoils in relief interspersed occasionally with small circles, the interiors of which are filled in with a red pigment.356
  • Two holes drilled on either side of the neck just below the ears probably once served to secure an ornamental necklace of precious metal. This is a point of considerable significance, for the addition of ornaments to a statue suggests that it was a cult object. If we are right in this conjecture, the head before us may represent either a deity or a personage who was deified. But, unfortunately, the chamber in which the head was found, though of most peculiar construction, cannot be identified with any certainty as part of a temple. There is, however, the possibility that the statue was not found where it was originally kept. There is a break at the back of the head of this statue, with a perfectly plain surface. It is possible that the head was accidentally broken and the fraéture trimmed down in order that another piece might be cemented to it. p. 357 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:40, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion and comments

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  • I was aware of the Bactrian idea, but through secondary references to Kenoyer etc. I also noticed he doesn't bring that up in his catalogue entry for the P-K in Aruz, in a context where the authors are usually expected to give a consensus view, rather than ride their own theories. Plenty of other authors, including the ones your version mainly used, don't mention this at all. I think "most scholars to consider it to be Central-Asian in origin per M. Vidale" is a step or two too far, especially if "origin" means "place of creation", as it most often does. I don't think Kenoyer believes that (I think he is more in line with the Caspers quote above), and your Vidale quote above is much more tentative. Btw, I'm pretty sure that the "embossed silver cup from Bactria with seated men" (aka one of the "Oxus silver vessels" lower down) refers to Aruz Cat# 257 (catalogue entry by Aruz herself), where most of the seated men are feasting. She does make the connection to the P-K, saying the cup "recall"s it. I shall take a look at Caspers if I can access it. Johnbod (talk) 12:57, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, Caspers is useful, and a proper piece of art history for a change. Her main points are picked up by the Possehl book I use, but there is stuff I can add when the dust settles. Johnbod (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apart from mere size, a problem with both "statue" and "statuette" is that they imply full-length (mostly standing, but including sitting poses), which the P-K very likely was originally, but clearly isn't now. I'm happy to look for places where "statuette" can be inserted - better than "statue" I agree, but I still think "sculpture", much the most frequent term used by both Kenoyer and Possehl to name but two, the best choice for the opening. Johnbod (talk) 12:57, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Steadman's "That the statue depicts an important person is likely; whether it represents a king who was also a priest is harder to document", from 2016, nicely illustrates the sensible reluctance of many scholars to categorically refute a "P-K" until they have better evidence of any alternative idea as to the possible subject. Johnbod (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've not seen anyone echo Vidale's "representing probably the same kneeling male personage". Seems very speculative, & can't surely be based on any facial resemblence. Johnbod (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If "sculpture" is a "later usage", that pretty thoroughly undercuts the OED stuff above (perhaps that OED note is actually older than you think - most of the stuff merged in in the 1989 edition was written in the 1930s). To me it is a perfectly natural term for people to use, and its "introduction" needs no explanation. "Figure" is ok, but more vague (& we know you don't like that), best reserved for the terracottas imo. Possibly "statue" is hearkening back to colonialist ways of thinking...... Johnbod (talk) 17:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, let's start with the OED. As you probably know, it was published in installments starting 1884. The first edition was completed in 1928, the section S-Se of Volume VIII, first edition, having been completed in 1914, and the entry for "sculpture" itself a little earlier in 1911. It is possible that the note in small print "Now chiefly used with reference to work in stone (esp. marble) or bronze (similar work in wood, ivory, etc. being spoken of as carving), and to the production of figures of considerable size." goes back to 1911 (the first edition) but that would be a little perplexing: why would they not give the modern meaning first and the original, obsolete, minority or transferred later? That is why I had thought the note was added in the 1989 second edition. (1933 was a reprint.) But it is possible that the note about "transferred use" is from 1911 and refers back to some earlier incomplete entries.
  • The other problem with using "sculpture" is that in every dictionary of the English language "sculpture" in the meaning of a single product of the art or process of sculpture is a secondary meaning, sometimes the tertiary, after the art and the mass noun, as it is in the OED. "Statue" and "statuette" are primary meanings. A statuette is simply a small statue. I don't have a clear answer for what is the best descriptor, but I find "sculpture" problematic, even "small sculpture," especially in the first sentence.
  • Now to the official account. It was published in 1931. The chapters quoted in the above section were written by Marshall, Sahni, and Mackay. This is the publication that every generation of IVC scholars has pored over. I can spot in many later books on IVC the paraphrased and NPOV'd phrasing of this volume. It must have had the input of dozens of major archaeologists of the time. It does not use "sculpture" pretty much anywhere in a description of P-K. For me, that is a big deal. In order for me to use something other than "statue," I'd have to establish that a preponderance of recent reliable sources has used "sculpture," and that they haven't, not even a majority has, not even a plurality. In their choice of words to describe PK, many authors mix it up because they are not sure themselves, as you have noted wisely about Steadman and the interpretation "P-K." (Btw, that may also have to do with her being a woman—finely discussed in In a different voice, by Carol Gilligan ( whom I once ran into in Sainsbury's (?) in Cambridge soon after I had avoided crashing into Steven Hawking speeding in his wheelchair.)). But you can spot the ones who are confident by searching for pre-modifier "priest-king," i.e for the blunt expressions "priest-king statue" and "priest-king sculpture." They show up 31 times to 10 respectively on Google Scholar, Kenoyer figuring prominently in the latter (as I had suspected). You can do more complex searches. But there too "statue" appears 286 times to "sculpture" 's 139. Anyway, more anon. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not impressed at all by the "secondary meaning" argument - this applies in exactly the same way to "painting", "drawing" and the various printmaking techniques like engraving. Dictionaries will always start from the highest level meaning. So we shouldn't call a single work a "painting"? Johnbod (talk) 00:02, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, now I look at my "compact" OED, which prints the original & the supplements one after the other, that note at "sculpture" is from the first edition. So not so "modern" after all - 110 years old, you say. I wonder if it will survive the ongoing overall revision - only 20 or so years to wait.
  • I'm rather confused, as you say we should follow "recent" RS, but then make a great deal of what the official account, now 90 years old, does. According to you, I'm the one with a "late colonial version hearkening to the last gasps of the British empire in India" and "cited to dated colonial sources"! In fact my version doesn't directly cite the official account, or any pre-1947 sources, at all, as opposed to using and quoting from much more recent accounts of the development of thinking covering them, mainly Possehl. Above, I've given what Kenoyer & Possehl, both with fairly extended recent accounts, do for terminology. Brief drive-by mentions are of less interest. Johnbod (talk) 00:30, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I meant by the primary, secondary, and tertiary is that in the literature "sculpture" is quite often used as a mass noun (secondary meaning); this occurrence does not mean that it is also being used as a count noun (tertiary meaning, which is our concern). Consider for example: Pramod Chandra's article on Indian Sculpture#Indus Valley Civilization (c. 2500–1800 BCE in Britannica. Says he (annotation in parentheses is mine), "Sculpture (mass noun) found in excavated cities consists of small pieces (count noun), generally terra-cotta objects (count noun), soapstone, or steatite, seals (count noun) carved for the most part with animals, and a few statuettes (count noun) of stone and bronze." So, you see that "sculpture" is being used for the totality, the secondary meaning, but none of the count nouns are "sculpture" (tertiary)
  • Examine his remaining section on Indus: "The terra-cotta figurines (count noun) are summarily modelled and provided with elaborate jewelry, ... The terra-cotta sculpture (mass noun) and the seals both show two clear and distinct stylistic trends, one plastic and sensuous, ... These appear during the same period and are also seen in the small group of stone and bronze sculptures (count noun) ... Of extraordinarily full and refined modelling is a fragmentary torso (count) from Harappa ... a headless figure (count) of a male dancer from ... Of great interest is a famous bearded figure (count) from Mohenjo-daro wearing a robe decorated with a pattern composed of trefoil motifs."
  • "Sculpture" as a count noun (in this instance in plural form) occurs only once, and that alone is what we can count when we tally usage.
  • If you examine Possehl in this light, here is what appears:
  • Page 113 Human sculpture (mass noun) from Mohenjo-daro Much of the sculpture (mass noun) from Mohenjo-daro was described just as it came from the earth in preliminary reports that were published annually through the field season 1936–1937. Adeleneau-Jansen has reviewed the sculpture (mass noun). The seven principle pieces are discussed here (figure 6.5) Caption of Figure 6.5: The seven principal pieces of human sculpture (mass noun) from Mohenjo-daro (after Marshall 1931 and Mackay 1937-38)
  • p114 This steatite bust was found by Dikshit during ... This piece can be attributed to the Late Period at Mohenjo-daro
  • p115 This is possible but it might also be that the sculpture was intented to be placed in a niche ... characteristic of Harappan sculpture (mass noun) The figure 's beard is close cropped Ardeleneau-Jansen has created an interesting reconstruction of the priest-king as a statue of a seated man. This posture assumed by other statuary (mass noun) ... Parpola postulates that this statue is a representation of a seated deity.
  • Total: "sculpture" as a mass noun (5); piece (3); statue (2); figure (1); sculpture (1) In other words, we can't really use Possehl much if we are going to call the P-K "a sculpture."
  • Marshall et al 1931 is to IVC what Darwin is to Evolutionary biology. How can they not count? I am talking about the descriptions, not the interpretations. Everyone reads them. Possehl acknowledges the descriptions in Marshall and Mackay. Indeed he has copied from them (if you read the section above), even the anecdote about Rai Bahadur So&So. When I was talking about "colonial," I meant interpretations (per Coningham and Young), not descriptions. Probably no more detailed descriptions exist, except perhaps Inez During Caspers's.
  • As for OED. Thanks for the info. But this does not mean that the meaning will change substantially when the third edition is complete (for the entry). I have examined quite a few entries for which the third edition is complete. The first edition volumes (for these entries) are available on archive.org. Some change quite a bit; some change only a little. (e.g. "Pregnancy" 1st and 2nd editions, which are identical, say, "The condition of being pregnant, or with child or young; gestation." (here) The 3rd says for the main meaning "The condition of a female of being pregnant or with child; an instance of this."). We'll have to wait. But I do think that "sculpture" most often in English (21st century) applied to objects that are quite a bit bigger than six inches.
  • So "late colonial version hearkening to the last gasps of the British empire in India" and "cited to dated colonial sources" meant Coningham, who I didn't use? My puzzlement deepens. Better keep digging. Johnbod (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • We'll get to that in good time. (I meant that the criticism of late colonial theories of Indus can be found in Coningham and Young. Some of that wrt gender is quoted in the lead of my last version. It is not a critique of colonialism, per se, but of the theories of IVC's political system advanced by colonial archaeologists. ) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:18, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Marshall can't be blamed for finding what he found, though Coningham seems rather lamely to imply that he can (or rather, even more lamely, suggest that some future investigator might conclude that he can). Everyone is agreed that, seals apart, the two star works of art from M-d are a) a small bronze of a young teenage girl, naked apart from jewellery, in a striking pose, and b) a much larger but incomplete middle-aged man, rather elaborately dressed, possibly meditating. Johnbod (talk) 15:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A fairly clear pattern seems to be emerging in the examples: "sculpture" is used in its secondary meaning (of a mass noun meaning "sculptured figures in general" OED) as explained above, but the majority of archaeologists prefer "figure," "statue," "statuette," or "bust" to "sculpture" in its tertiary meaning ("A work of sculpture; a sculptured figure or design" OED). Even Gregory L. Possehl does not use "sculpture" as a descriptor for the Priest-King except once. We have a total of 15 archaeologists now if we include Marshall, Sahni, and Mackay (for usage, not interpretation). "Sculpture" in its tertiary meaning is not used much in the literature except by Kenoyer. I'm not done with Sentence 1 yet, but I'm beginning to favor "figure," suitably pre- or post-modified. Note figure has the meaning: "Represented form: esp. An artificial representation of the human form. In sculpture: A statue, an image, an effigy" OED; note "figurine" is a diminutive of "figure" in this meaning). It seems to have pedigree in the literature. I'll propose some versions here that accommodate the current version in some fashion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:59, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here is one proposal. Johnbod and Ceoil: let me know what you think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:39, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • " human figure sculpted in.." seems an odd and clumsy way of putting it, and loses the "small", which I had grown attached to. "Figure" as a term for a work is usually used for something small and often ceramic, up to say 6 inches tall, so "small figure" would lead in the wrong direction. I feel strongly that the information on the height needs to follow the information that it is broken - "human figure ... 7 inches tall" suggests this is the full-length height. Describing objects precisely without misleading is difficult. Other touches I can live with, though a comma rather than an "and" would be better before "catalogued". Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ist para redux

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All copied from F&F's talk Fowler, you do remember we are not using sfn here, right? That format will not stand. A number of your changes are clearly not improvements. For a long time you wanted this article deleted, so perhaps you shouldn't spend too much time on it (again). I'll wait till you've finished & then see where we are. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. How are we not using Sfn? I just got through the Darjeeling FAR and you did the Palladian architecture where the cite books, cite journals and sfn formats were the rule. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:26, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those were the established style per WP:CITEVAR. And I hardly touched Palladian architecture, that was all KJP1- my last edits were these. As discussed on talk, sfn is very much not established by consensus for PK. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are Wikilawyering. Tell me instead why you are against Sfn. It is directly linked the source, year, and page, and that in turn to the detailed description to the source (via cite books, cite journal and cite web). It protects us from handwaving, i.e. casually citing sources in vague language. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is very poorly written. You have removed quite a few sources I had added. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Many of your prose changes are not as good as you seem to think, and as usual you removed many sources yourself. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Jb, they have nothing to do with prose. I did not touch your description in the second paragraph. They have to do with old POVs, old terms, and so forth. I have to run some errands, but will explain in greater detail here in a couple of hours. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for the delay. Here are some issues:
The Priest-King, in Pakistan
  • often (How do we know?) King-Priest,
  • See for example the museum label illustrated below(a museum label is not a source, nor an indication of wide usage) is a small male figure sculpted in steatite found during the excavation of the
  • ruined "ruined" is generally problematic for M-d, as it didn't crumble, it wasn't destroyed (like Persepolis) or stripped (like Harappa), it was simply buried intact in the lower Indus basin dust)
  • Bronze Age also problematic for IVC. I left it in in the IVC lead sentence because it had been there before I appeared, but it becomes doubly problematic in describing an artifact in which tools have been used. Coningham and Young (2015), for example, say, "Finally, it is worth noting the difficulty of using the term ‘Bronze Age’ to refer to the Indus Civilisation and ‘Chalcolithic ’ to discuss some of the contemporary and later farming communities in the Deccan and Peninsular India . This is because although copper and bronze objects were utilised in both regions and during both phases, stone tools were also utilised and appear to have retained an important position. For this reason, we shall refer to both the Indus Civilisation and the later farming communities of the Deccan and Peninsular India as ‘Chalcolithic’. This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are many other examples which demonstrate that South Asian cultures and people did not always adopt or select linear progressions in technological and social change."
  • city of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, in 1925–26. It is dated to around 2000–1900 BCE, in Mohenjo-daro's Green tickY
  • Late Period, of no value to a reader
  • and is "the most famous stone sculpture" these nameless quoted bits are not helpful. They leave the reader perplexed about who said this and why it is representative. If some truly famous person said this, they should be named; otherwise they should be summarized
  • of the Indus Valley civilization ("IVC").
  • <ref>Kenoyer, 62 (quoted); Possehl, 114</ref> this is what I mean by handwaving. Someone such as me who is experienced is perplexed by this citation. Once I click on it, I have to scroll down again to figure out which publication of Kenoyer is this. The lord above help me if there are several years of Kenoyer and several more of Possehl. It places too much burden on the reader.
  • It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Pakistan as NMP 50-852. Green tickY I left it in but as you must know, "now" is generally frowned upon.
  • It is widely admired, as "this sort of praise is are generally meaningless; by whom? the scholars? the people who finally get to see it in the museum?
  • "the sculptor combined naturalistic detail with stylized forms to create a powerful image that appears much bigger than it actually is,"Green tickY
<ref name="auto2">Aruz, 385</ref>
  • and excepting possibly the Pashupati Seal nothing has come to symbolize the Indus Civilization better." again the kind of arbitrary judgment that means little. "Really, nothing?" I could say to Possehl. "The dancing girl? The Indian Rhino? The Bos Taurus? The Great Bath? The brick-lined streets? The city planning?
  • <ref>Possehl, 114 (quoted)</ref> Again the same issues. Beyond the scrolling, I don't know who is being quoted.
Look I'm not fighting you. I don't have any ill-will towards you. It is obvious you are great at the art history stuff. But this is art history within the confines of archaeology. We can't disrespect those boundaries or for that matter Indus archaeology's modern methodology. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:35, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll copy this to the article talk page before responding. Johnbod (talk) 20:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, I'd forgotten all about this! I've just reverted to my last version. The blatent breach of WP:CITEVAR, after complaints and warnings, can't be allowed to stand. The actual textual changes to the lead are footling, in the usual F&F way. I notice that the article, which F&F began by wanting to take to Afd, now attracts over 200 views a day. And this talk page is over 120Kbytes, which is quite long enough. Johnbod (talk) 16:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Museum image

[edit]
Current image
New proposed image

I am being reverted [1] for proposing [2] a better image of the cast in the National Museum of Pakistan (better definition, better lighting, more formal angle, cleaned-up background). The reason given for the revert in the edit summary seems outlandish "the priest king is wearing a Modi mask designed in Papua and New Guinea" [3], and rather unwarranted... A third opinion would be welcome. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 05:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please quote the full edit summary of the revert. What was it? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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