Talk:Dioceses of the Church of the East to 1318

My homework for the next five years
I've just started work on a major Assyrian project, which I envisage will eventually yield about 120 related articles: namely to provide comprehensive information on all the known dioceses and metropolitan provinces of the Assyrian Church of the East throughout its history. Most of the information for the period from 1318 onwards has already been conveniently assembled in my book The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1918, and merely needs cutting, pasting, formatting and updating. For the period up to 1318 I am drawing heavily on the text of a second book which I wrote in parallel with EOCE but which, for the moment, remains unpublished on my computer. My aim is to write a series of balanced, authoritative and well-sourced articles.

I've started off by discussing the sources and giving an overview of the Parthian and Sassanian periods. I will move on to the Ummayad, 'Abbasid and Mongol periods in the next few weeks. I'll leave the post-1318 period alone for the time being as the evidence is already out there in my book, which quite a few Assyrians seem to have access to.

Once I get the structure sorted out, I would love help from other contributors providing things like templates and diocese names in Syriac and Arabic (at present the article contains only one Syriac name, that for Adiabene, and I had to cut and paste that from another article. If there's an easy way of writing Syriac and Arabic on Wikipedia, I'd love to know about it. I'm competent enough in both languages, but technologically-challenged when it comes to typing them.

I intend to add detailed maps of individual dioceses as I go on. I've got a lot of stuff available on my computer which, if I can work out how to transfer it, will make very good Wikipedia illustrations.

Once this gets going it's going to be good fun trying to find apposite illustrations. There's some nice late-nineteenth-century photos of patriarchs and bishops around which it would be good to have, and a lot of good illustrations in the books written by European travellers. I think there's an early portrait of Abdisho IV at the Council of Trent in 1562. Does anyone know where to access it?

I'll be splitting off bits from this article as it grows and breeding secondary articles. In the meantime, can I seek fellow-users' views on the general concept. I'm trying to write this article in simple English, but I'm aware that it has an academic tone to it. Does that matter? I'm working on the assumption that people are looking for accurate information when they consult an encyclopedia, and that's what I'm trying to give. If some of it seems rather dry, I can't help that. Perhaps the maps will liven it up a bit.

Any comments, anyone?

Djwilms (talk) 09:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Before anyone starts slapping tags on this article, I will be comprehensively footnoting every sentence and providing a proper list of references. Give me a few days to get myself sorted out. This is just day one.

Smart quotes
On the subject of my technological incompetence, does anybody know how to stick in a 'smart' single quotation mark to represent the Syrian letter 'Ain or 'E, or whatever it's called nowadays, in names such as 'Abdisho'? For the moment I'm following the convention used in Wikipedia articles on Islam, i.e. using a grave accent (thus: `Abdisho`), but I think it looks very odd. I'd much rather replace the grave accent with a nice curly quotemark. Can anybody help?

Djwilms (talk) 02:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments
1  Ain Sipne must be Ain Sifne town north of Mosul.

2  Amazing nothing on the vital district of Hazza or (Khazza).

3  Can you do an identification list, it helps the reader;

Adiabene   - Provinces of Arbil & Mosul Hebton     - Harir plain Khazza     - Hazza village south of Ankawa Beth Garmai - A northerly extended version of Taamin Province Hditha     - Rawanduz

4  Isn't Hebton pronounced Kheptun in Assyria and Hazza is Khazza. --Shemsdin2010 (talk) 22:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Problematic names and thus links
The post 16th, 17th century article names and thus links are problematic for obvious neutrality reasons, for anyone who investigates subsequent history. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:34, 17 April 2017 (UTC)