Talk:List of Egyptian obelisks

Number in Egypt vs Italy
wrote that the article is contradictory regarding whether Italy or Egypt has a larger number of these obelisks; the list mentions twelve in Egypt and only eight in Italy (nine if the one in the Vatican is included), but the prose says that there are more in Italy than in Egypt

The "more in Italy than Egypt" comes from ref #5: Allen, D. (2013). How Mechanics Shaped the Modern World. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-319-01701-3. Retrieved 2022-01-23. "By the way, there are 29 extant Egyptian obelisks in the world today. Nine are in Egypt, and eleven in Italy (eight of which are in Rome, having been pilfered by the Romans after Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE, thereby conquering Egypt). Others are scattered across the world."

My guess is that the nine in Egypt exclude the <1m obelisk fragment in the Luxor Museum, the unfinished obelisk, and the new reconstructed obelisk in Tahrir Square. There are good arguments for excluding the first two of these three, so I think the statement that "there are only about 30 Ancient Egyptian obelisks (example pictured) left standing worldwide" remains correct. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but this article and that source are still contradictory. The article is missing two or three in Italy (depending on whether we include the one in the Vatican in Italy's count or not) that the source says exist. Moreover, the article lists 31 total of which twelve are in Egypt, whereas the source says that there are 29 total of which nine are in Egypt, so discounting two or three of the ones in Egypt doesn't resolve the issue since either the total or the number of ones in Egypt will still mismatch. At any rate, it is rather egregious to list a higher number in Egypt than in Italy while this is on the WP:Main page stating that there are more in Italy than in Egypt. TompaDompa (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Interpreting the list in the way you are doing is WP:Original research, which we cannot do without sources backing it up. I disagree with way you are interpreting the list; it continues to support the statement. We say “about 30” for exactly the reason you say. And we don’t state the exact number of each location, just the relative position which I believe remains correct. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:38, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm just counting the number of entries. I came here because I saw this on the WP:Main page and wondered how many there are in Egypt and Italy respectively. So I counted the number of entries for each and arrived at an apparent contradiction. So I added a maintenance tag that the article appears to contradict itself, and it does appear to do so. Maybe there is some good explanation for the discrepancy, but unless that explanation is present in the article (which would of course require proper sourcing), the article will continue to appear contradictory to readers. That's rather a problem when the article is currently on the WP:Main page and thus probably getting a lot more traffic than it usually does.I'm not disputing the "about 30" part—that's borne out both by the cited source and the list itself—I'm asserting that the text and the list don't appear to match. Discounting the three obelisks in Egypt that you suggest means that we still list nine in Egypt which is either one more than in Italy (if the one in the Vatican isn't counted) or the same number (if it is). As for the issue of distinguishing between ones that are still standing and those that are not, the sentence Only about 30 such obelisks are still standing worldwide, and there are more in Italy than in Egypt. is ambiguous—does it mean "Only about 30 such obelisks are still standing worldwide, and there are more [such obelisks that are still standing] in Italy than in Egypt" or "Only about 30 such obelisks are still standing worldwide, and there exist more in Italy than in Egypt"? And even then, the source doesn't actually say "still standing", it says extant, which means "still in existence".I brought this up at WP:ERRORS, by the way. TompaDompa (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you raise very valid points. And I agree we could tighten the wording to help fix this. I presume you don’t have any other WP:SECONDARY sources which contradict the Allen 2013 source used to support the point?
 * Please could you propose how best yo clarify the language? I am sure we can agree something quickly.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 19:31, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This is not an area I'm particularly familiar with, I just came here from the WP:Main page out of curiosity and discovered that the featured hook—which is supposed to be an interesting fact from the article that makes people want to read the rest of the article to find out more—appears on the face of it to be straight-up wrong. That's why I think this is such a big problem—surely others will do the same? This is a rather egregious issue that should have been discovered and rectified well in advance of the article appearing on the WP:Main page. The easiest solution would be to change the sentence in the article to Only about 30 such obelisks are still in existence worldwide. and the hook to ... that there are only about 30 Ancient Egyptian obelisks (example pictured) left worldwide? to avoid both the issue of misrepresenting the source's use of "extant" as "still/left standing" and the issue of the count seemingly being incorrect. That would make it a lot less interesting of course, but it would resolve those two major issues. TompaDompa (talk) 19:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks TompaDompa, understood. To try to get best of both worlds, I added a clause explaining how different authors calculate different total figures, and then put the “more in Italy than in Egypt” in David Allen’s voice rather that Wikipedia’s voice. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

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 * Lateran Obelisk HD.jpg