Talk:Book of the Dead/GA1

GA Review
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 * Well-written: I thought that it was written in a vivid, engaging way. From what I could see from Google Books previews, the paraphrasing was not too close, and did a good job of concisely representing the source material. I gave it a copyedit for grammar, spelling, and understandability issues. Try not to rely on the semicolon too much. There are a few places that I wasn't confident in fixing myself, so I'll list them:
 * thanks for that; and yes, I do overuse the semicolon! The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In the Organisation section, you write "for a long time Egyptologists concluded there was no internal structure at all." When or how long ago was this "long time"? Be specific.
 * The structure is referenced to a 1967 book Le Livre des Morts by Paul Barguet. However I can't find anything that says explicitly it was derived from him, and I can't read the book either because it's in French! So we will have to do with something fairly vague for the time being, or omit this point entirely. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've looked at your original source through Google Docs, and it appears to me we can say something to the effect of "until that study Egyptologists thought." I've made a change to that effect, which you're welcome to take a look at.
 * In the Discovery section, the fourth paragraph is a bit too listy and jumbled. Perhaps you could talk about Budge's work in a separate paragraph?
 * I have reworked that a bit, hopefully it's clearer now. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's much better now.
 * In the Producing section, you mention that the price of a Book is one deben of silver, and then you go on to say it could cost as much as half a year's wages. Is one deben of silver half a year's wages, or are they two separate appraisals?
 * Evidently only one source attests this it costs a deben of silver, and Goelet (author of the relevant bit of Faulkner 1994) says that's half a year's pay for a labourer. Clarified. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Awesome.
 * As a general view, make sure that your tense and your gendered pronouns are consistent. I'm not fully convinced that it's completely so.
 * Good point. With gender I've checked the uses of "he" and "his" and neutralised them where appropriate. With tense, the nature of the article means there are frequent changes between what was done or was believed then and what is observed or is known now. However I have fixed the everything I thought was a definite error. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, good. As long as it's consistent, it's fine. Looks okay.
 * Verifiability: Well-chosen reliable sources. As a possible source of future expansion, you could reference the individual spells themselves more often.
 * I'll definitely bear that in mind, but haven't changed anything quite yet. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Broad: Very comprehensive. However, I think that the Spells section digresses a bit too much when it comes to magic, especially the third paragraph.
 * I've deleted two sentences which were semi-repetitive. On the whole I think it's important to establish the way Egyptians perceived words, magic and religion as it's the key to understanding the whole text. Hopefully what remains does that ok. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I took out the "While this may seem...to the modern reader" part because I didn't think it was very neutral with respect to the reader. Other than that it seems just right now.
 * Neutral: The article presents a good number of varying view points about the Book of the Dead from different Egyptologists. I think the commentary on the Judgement section could still use more reference to the original proponents, though. The second paragraph in particular could use direct reference to Faulkner and Taylor, the people you cited for that section. I'm not sure who could be attributed with which sentiment or statement, so I haven't done it myself.
 * It's only the second half of the second paragraph where the views are really separate. There seems to be a consensus that the Book of the Dead reflects everyday Egyptian morality rather than imposing it. There is a much bigger difference of opinion about where you actually had to be morally pure to get into the afterlife or whether you just needed the right spell to get past the Weighing of the Heart. I have tweaked the order a bit and now I am explicitly referencing three separate views (Taylor, Goelet and Pinch). The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. It looks like the changes you've made there are satisfactory.
 * Stable: Nothing to worry about here.
 * Images: I notice that File:Carl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884).jpg does not have a source. I don't doubt that it's public domain, but it should be cleared up if possible. The other images check out. The captions are very detailed. If you're looking for expansion beyond GA, please be sure to provide alt text.
 * I'm not sure what the source of the Lepsius file is either, though it does occur in Taylor, which is probably enough to satisfy people that the picture is indeed Lepsius. Will update the image. Thanks for the reminder about alt-text, I will do it shortly. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Alt text isn't required for GA, but right now it is for FA. I'll leave you to that on your own time. I went ahead and managed to identify the source of the image: It's from the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek.

Overall, I think it's a fine article, but I'd like to see the fixes accomplished before passing to GA. Therefore, I'll be putting this on hold for now.

Reviewer:  bibliomaniac 1  5  06:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the review! I will have a look in a bit more detail this evening. The Land (talk) 12:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comments interspersed above. Thanks for such a thorough and helpful review, let me know if there is any more to do. The Land (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've done a few more fixes that I caught as well as a couple of more substantial fixes. Let me know what you think. If I have your okay for those, I'll be passing the article.  bibliomaniac 1  5  19:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, hadn't seen this comment until now. All fine with me! The Land (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * All right, it's getting the pass then.  bibliomaniac 1  5  20:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Many thanks once again for the review & input. The Land (talk) 20:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)