User talk:AgTigress

Welcome!

Hello, AgTigress, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Mike Christie (talk) 23:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
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 * Welcome. Great user name.  :-) - PKM (talk) 03:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thetford & Cignus
Hi! Should you have a copy of Johns & Potter handy (cough), it would be great if you could add page refs, not as densely as Hoxne has. Just the format "(Johns and Potter, p. 123)" is fine.

Also, at cignus, is it the case that the term is used in Roman sources but we are not sure it refers to this type of spoon, or is the term (for spoons) entirely a modern invention? Hoxne Hoard has now reached FA by the way, though the "promotion" has not been processed yet. Thanks for all your help! Johnbod (talk) 11:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC) Hello, Johnbod. Thank you for your greeting. I do have a copy of the Thetford catalogue to hand, yes. But I am very uncertain indeed about all the Wikipedia editing procedures and rules, I fear, so I am exceedingly nervous about adding or changing anything. I don't really know how to add references or to cite footnotes yet. I shall have to look up lots of instructions, and allowances must be made for my advanced years. As far as the Thetford Hoard article is concerned, it needs to be subdivided, with headings like 'discovery', 'silver tableware', 'gold jewellery', 'other objects' and 'significance', but I dare not attempt that.

Cignus: this term is evidently found in some ancient texts, but the actual appearance of the 'cigni' is not described, so it is a modern speculation (1992) that it was one name of the late-Roman 'swan-handled' spoons. Reference is Harald Mielsch, 'Miszellen zur spätantiken Toreutik', in Archäologisches Anzeiger 1992, pp. 111-152. There is also quite a full discussion of spoon typology in the Hoxne catalogue itself, Johns 2010, pp. 98-106, which includes discussion of the evolution of the subject.

I have just been looking at the Wiki article listing hoards in Britain. It is very incomplete on the Roman side. I'll add a comment to the talk page.

Oh, and 'AgTigress': I have used that nickname online in all sorts of forums that have nothing whatsoever to do with archaeology for more than 10 years... :-) --AgTigress (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! You can just add the references in a simple format as text - the fancier ways aren't necessary, & someone will probably convert them later. Johnbod (talk) 08:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay: thanks. I hope I shall get the hang of things as I go along. AgTigress (talk) 22:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Thetford refs
Hi -- I got your message, but by the time I took a look three other editors were in there helping sort things out! Please do ask whenever you have a question and if someone else hasn't fixed the problem I will certainly come by to help. I have that article on my watchlist anyway, though I mostly work on Anglo-Saxon topics.

I should also say that it's fairly easy to master Wikipedia formatting, but that it's not that important. This place has many editors who know how to make a reference look right; we don't have enough editors who know what content should be put in and referenced in the first place. So don't sweat the small stuff: put in the right material and some form of reference and it will get cleaned up. And if you do learn how to do the references (and other formatting) that's a bonus. Mike Christie (talk) 23:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for all your help. I have now added a bit to the 'Discovery' section on the Thetford page, because someone demanded 'clarification'. I have explained on the relevant discussion page why I had originally said little about it. The finder of the Thetford hoard behaved foolishly, but what's done is done, and the poor man didn't live long to rue his decisions, so I think one should not dwell too much on it. There is actually a lot that could be added to the other sections on that page, but I'll do them bit by bit, when I have time. AgTigress (talk) 11:56, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Mildenhall Treasure page
I may try to get somewhere with this one, too, which is just a skeleton at the moment. AgTigress (talk) 18:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I have now had a bit of a go at Mildenhall. Not complete by any means, and it would benefit from being checked by someone more experienced (more experienced with Wikipedia, I mean. I am confident of my facts on the actual subject!). AgTigress (talk) 12:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Roman jewellery
I saw your note about the lack of a good article on Roman jewellery, and that you weren't sure how to start an article. I think I also saw you mention that you didn't know how to make links to other Wikipedia articles. The two topics are related, so I thought I'd explain them both. To link to an article you surround the name of the article in double square brackets. When you're editing, it will look like this: Rome. When you save the edit, it will look like this: Rome.

So one way to start an article is to write some text with a link to it (e.g. on your talk page), like this: Roman jewellery. The link to the new article is automatically created by Wikipedia when it saves the text. It also colours the link; it will be red if the article linked does not, in fact, exist, and blue otherwise. As I write this, the "Roman jewellery" link is red. However, if you were to click on it, a page will come up saying "Editing Roman jewellery", and giving some instructions. Anything you type in the box would be saved as the article -- this is the same edit box that comes up when you edit anything on Wikipedia. When you save that page, the article is created. If you then look at the link, it will have turned blue, since the article now exists.

There are several things that are created by convention for new Wikipedia articles, such as categories, but none of these are compulsory. All you need to do to ensure that the article grows is put enough information in the first version so that a reader will see it's a real topic. A couple of sentences with a parenthetical reference will suffice. See this version of the Wikipedia article on the British Library; that's how the very first version of that article looked in 2001. It looks rather better now.

If you do decide to start the article, and have any questions, leave a note on my talk page -- I don't always respond right away but will be happy to help. Mike Christie (talk) 00:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, our coverage of almost all jewellery topics, especially historical ones, is very poor. I would just start it; I would also be happy to keep an eye on it. A somewhat more "private" and flexible way to work up an article is to use a "sandbox" - a subpage of your user page. By convention this this will not be edited by others unless you specifically ask for this, and although anyone can read it it is unlikely anyone will find it; it can be used in any way with notes, incomplete text and so on. All the usual links etc can be added, but it should not be added to categories. When you think it is ready it can be moved to "mainspace" - ie as a normal article. I'll take the liberty of setting-up User:AgTigress/sandbox for you in case you want to take this route; any number of additional pages can be set up.  We didn't have any main article on Ancient Roman pottery, a subject about which I knew next to nothing, so I set one up; I'd be very grateful if you could give that a look-over, as I'm not aware that it has had any expert eyes on it. Just ask Mike, myself or one of the Hoxne contributors if you are not sure about anything.  Johnbod (talk) 01:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that, Johnbod. I'll certainly have a look at the Roman pottery page; it's a dauntingly complex subject, of course, because of the many regional, chronological and functional/typological sub-classifications. I haven't tried the 'sandbox' editing facility yet -- I didn't really understand the instructions about it when first reading through information about editing. I have to take this a small step at a time. :-) AgTigress (talk) 11:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just a way of doing a draft. You edit it like any other page, but it is in effect private (though it can be seen by anyone who manages to locate it). Thanks again for the pottery comments! Johnbod (talk) 10:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ancient Roman Pottery and Terra Sigillata articles
I have added quite a lot to the former, and am in the process of building up the second of these articles at the moment, but there is still plenty of scope for more. AgTigress (talk) 19:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Dragendorff types
Hi -- I've been watching your work at Terra sigillata and Ancient Roman pottery, and enjoying reading the articles as they expand. Do you think it would be worth creating a Wikipedia article called List of Dragendorff types, or something similar? From what I can see, the types are fundamental to the classification of the pottery, and an article listing the types could be a useful reference. From Kevin Greene's book Roman Pottery I gather that Dragendorff's type series have been expanded by other workers, and I imagine there are other classification schemes that could be described; Greene refers to Conspectus formarum terrae sigillatae italico modo confectae, as well as Peacock & Williams' Amphorae and the Roman Economy. So perhaps instead of just a list, there is room for an article called Classification of Roman pottery or Classification of terra sigillata?

By the way, in case it's not clear, I'm completely ignorant about this topic, so please excuse me if my suggestions don't make sense. The articles interest me and I'd like to help with filling in some of the background, if it can be done from reference works that I can get access to.

Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 16:51, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Mike, there is a sigillata type-list on German Wikipedia. I'll have to take a better look at it. All Roman pottery classification would be FAR too enormous to do. Really. Even the sigillata ones: Dragendorff, Dechelette, Knorr, Curle, Walters, Ludowici, the Haltern and Hofheim (Loeschcke and Ritterling) types, the new Arretine Conspectus (which is in my bibliography of the TS article), Hayes' types for ARS and Eastern sigillatas...  The problem is illustrating it:  how could one possibly do that, with all the copyright probs.? I asked at an early stage whether I could put in a couple of Dragendorff pages from 1895/6, but Johnbod wasn't sure about the copyright position. Dragendorff himslef died in 1941 (hah! the same year I was born!), but probably the journal (Bonner Jahrbucher, still going strong) holds copyright anyway. I can't even use a small table I drew myself for a short book published in 1971, because it is British Museum copyright...

I think that the TS article is complete-ish at the moment. Thanks for your kind comments on it. :) AgTigress (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's the German one: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_wichtiger_Terra-Sigillata-Gef%C3%A4%C3%9Fformen. AgTigress (talk) 18:51, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It all hinges on the images, I imagine. Without them a mere list is not much use. Johnbod (talk) 20:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. And the images should be standard archaeological profile drawings for easy comparison, not photographs. :) AgTigress (talk) 20:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, one thing about putting up a list without having the profile drawings is that it provides a place to put the profile drawings if we should obtain them. But more generally it sounds like there could be an article just giving an overview of the sigillata classification systems -- Classification of terra sigillata.  Not a priority, certainly, but if there are as many classifications as you name then surely something could be said about them even if we can't give the full details.  One nice thing about Wikipedia is that there's no deadline.  Any progress we make will help some future editor who decides to return to the topic.  But it's certainly not as useful a topic as the work you're doing now. Mike Christie (talk) 22:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the Potsherd site do it pretty well (more than enough detail for me anyway!), with images. We're probably better off pointing people there. Johnbod (talk) 22:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

That's true, up to a point. The thing is that for a non-archaeologist looking one of these things up, I think it helps to see even one profile drawing in the main article, to get an insight into how these things are studied and published. AgTigress (talk) 09:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't remember if I've pointed to this Commons category, where I got the one we've used, which has a few others too. Johnbod (talk) 19:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have seen those. They are okay, though I dislike the 'open' section profile. Usual practice is to black them in. The drawings from Ritterling's Hofheim are lovely, but different from modern arch. drawings, of course. Hofheim was published in 1913, and presumably whoever uploaded them decided they were public domain.

I am drawing a few basic types myself, and might upload and use those if they turn out to be satisfactory. AgTigress (talk) 21:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello, i'm author of the german list and just noticed your work (very nice work, always a pleasure when professionals start working on a whole complex). Some explanations on my work might be useful to you:
 * the german list ist still pretty much work in progress. There are still many forms lacking, it is focussed on frequent forms found in Germany. Another Problem are the forms named twice ore more. As you mentioned, every form should have an illustration. Drawings would be a more apropriate illustration than photographs.
 * About one year ago, the TS-categories on commons have been very small. They have grown notably. The only option is: collecting pictures. In the end of September im visiting the de:Terra-Sigillata-Museum in Rheinzabern again. As you can see, many of the pictures come from a villa site in germany (roman Villa Haselburg, Hummetroth). That is because i'm adding the most useful pictures i can get. If a whole vessel comes into my hands, i take at least a picture.
 * Hans Dragendorff died in 1941, so 2011 all his pictures (presumed he drawed himself, but in his work, no hint to someone else drawing is given) will match the copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years. I'm looking forward to it and have all images ready on my harddisk.
 * The few drawed and photographed vessels are from the Haselburg-villa, the only more or less complete TS-vessels found. I've got some more without photograph, but will not upload them, until my work is finished. Many German archaeologist draw the open profile section. There has been an article a few years ago, critizising, they would look like worms otherwise (have to see, if i find it, if you're interested).
 * Im searching for pictures of Campana-ware. Pictures and articles are very rare on all wikipedias. That is a problem when explaining the invention of TS, in some articles about mediterranean roman cities i've been missing them too. If you can find any, please leave me a message.
 * So far about my work and what might interest you. If you have further questions, you can contact me via e-mail or on my german talk page. Keep up the good work! --Haselburg-müller (talk) 09:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for all that! I will leave a message for you on your talk page! AgTigress (talk) 13:01, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Opus interassile, or opus interasile?
- both seem used by reputable authors. Johnbod (talk) 18:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Ack. Yes, different spellings are used; interrasile, interasile, and maybe even interassile, though I don't think I have seen the last one, but the modern practice is to avoid it altogether and use 'pierced work'. It was first popularised by Marshall, I think, in his BM Jewellery Catalogue (1907). If you use it, I should say "so-called' opus interasile". It's a bit of a parallel to 'terra sigillata' / 'samian ware' becoming red-gloss /red-slipped wares, and for the same reason. Scholars of the 19th and early 20thC liked to use erudite-looking Latin terms, and as time passes, we often find that they were not well chosen, or do not really refer to what our predecessors thought they referred to. AgTigress (talk) 09:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Just glanced at the link: there are many examples that could be illustrated that are much more spectacular than the Hoxne Juliane bracelet. :) AgTigress (talk) 09:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Terra sigillata
 — Rlevse • Talk  • 12:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Visions of Johanna
Hi AgTigress. How are you? Thanks for your recent addition to the "Visions of Johanna" article. Actually, right now the article is right smack in the middle of a Good article review. That means, right now especially, all information in the article needs to be sourced, and the sources need to be reliable ones. I had a quick scan online but couldn't fine a source for the information you added that Wikipedia would consider reliable. That doesn't mean that such a source doesn't exist, it just means I couldn't find one quickly. So for the time being I deleted the information, until we can find one. If we can find one, I'd be very happy to include the information you added. Would you mind waiting a few days or so until the Good article review is over, and then maybe together we could look into finding a good, reliable source for the information. Thank you, and I'll talk to you again soon. Sincerely, Moisejp (talk) 21:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Moisejp: thanks for explaining! Sorry for jumping in at the wrong moment -- I should have looked at the 'talk' page. I had just been listening to the superb Catalan version of the song by Gerard Quintana, and when I saw it wasn't listed I just added it. Being bold...! I'm not sure about sourcing/referencing this (I am not a very experienced Wikipedia editor), except by citing the existence of the album called 'Els miralls de Dylan: Sense reina ni as', by Gerard Quintana and Jordi Batiste, (Musica Global, 2000). The track is called 'visions de Johanna'; all the songs are Catalan versions of Bob Dylan songs. Would it help to cross-reference the album to the English Wikipedia page on Gerard Quintana? Which, I must confess, I wrote... Anyway, it would be nice if this version, which is very good by any standards, could eventually be included along with the other non-English ones. AgTigress (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Would the record-label's website with the catalogue entry and track listing for the album be adequate reference? If so, it is http://www.musicaglobal.com/en/pl42/id101/discs/sense-reina-ni-as.htm. :) AgTigress (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Dear AgTigress, yes that source does look like it would be reliable, as it is the record company's official site. Thank you very much. I will add the version back into the article later today. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 15:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! And I'm sorry I caused a glitch! It is such an amazing song. I hope the article makes GA standard. :) AgTigress (talk) 20:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Moisejp, congratulations! I see the article is now GA. :) AgTigress (talk) 11:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, AgTigress! And thanks again for your contribution. It's fun to be able to add another notable cover version. Bye for now, Moisejp (talk) 03:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * :) I wish that the Catalan version were on YouTube, because it is very, very good. I don't know how to upload things to YouTube, or I'd do it. The actual translation of the lyrics is very close indeed, which considering how baffling they are in places even in English, is quite an achievement.    AgTigress (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Missorium of Theodosius I
Hi! I gave this a going over in 2007 & have recently added more, from Leader-Newby & others. Could you kindly cast an eye over it? Johnbod (talk) 21:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

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Gunneweg
Hi! Hope you are having a good summer. When you next drop by you might take a look at this addition (me tidying up edits by the person themselves as best I can, then adding on Sagalassos). Also a bit here. The point about the chronology remains incoherent, as does the scope of the groups. Do we need this? Best wishes, Johnbod (talk) 18:16, 17 August 2014 (UTC)


 * And now there's a short Quoit brooch. Btw the BM currently displays that Hoxne bracelet upside down, so showing a procession of animals lying on their backs waving their legs in the air! Still, they look cheerful on it. Hope you're well, Johnbod (talk) 10:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Goodness, Johnbod, just looking at that makes my head spin. Eastern Sigillatas were always a bit beyond me. I haven't looked at the Hoxne display for quite a while, but I must try to do so before they turn the bracelet the right way up!

2014 has been a hard year for me: my poor husband died in August, and it was not a quick or easy death. I am trying to get my life together again. I came on to Wikipedia today for the first time for months, so that I could add something to the talk page on Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, of all things! These long hiatuses mean that I forget all the editing rules, and have to try to learn them afresh.

Happy New Year to you. AgTigress (talk) 11:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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