User talk:PericlesofAthens/Archive 12

You are an artist.

 * thanks for the compliment! I do try at times. Out of curiosity, may I ask how you stumbled across my user page? Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 05:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh I like to maintain the name section on Augustus. My lame edits pale in comparison to the amazing work you've done. I think I just wondered through the edits and found your username. I know my barnstar is out of the blue, but when an editor like yourself puts in the work to create the absolute gem of a user page you have, I gotta let them know. LivinRealGüd (talk) 05:55, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks for letting me know! Pericles of Athens  Talk 05:59, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

History of Egypt
Do you think that the article History of Egypt could be nominated as a featured article? Векочел (talk) 03:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * absolutely not. That article is tagged for having "multiple issues" and has tons of places with "citation needed" tags. It also just seems horribly mismanaged and disorganized, with some sections being very large and others very small. That's incredibly unbalanced. Why, for instance, is there a section combining Ptolemaic, Roman, and Sasanian Egypt all into one? These should all be treated separately with their own sections of equal weight (although the Sasanian period of control was admittedly very brief and the amount of material should reflect that). Pericles of Athens  Talk 03:38, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Scythians: Please comment
We want to rewrite the lead section. Would you please participate and comment here? Talk:Scythians Thanks. --Wario-Man (talk) 06:04, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

about statue of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt
Hello, I am very sorry about the bust of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt and the bust of her daughter Cleopatra Selene II, wife of Juba II of Mauretania. I live very far from Cherchell (1600 km) and I do not think I will visit that area soon, Even if I visit the city I do not think the Archaeological Museum of Cherchell allows taking photos. Someone else might be able to do it, but I'm not sure of that, so I told you not to wait for my answer long. My greetings Trabelsiismail (talk) 10:31, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * hello! No worries and thanks for responding! I completely understand. Algeria is a big country and it's not easy to get around (and if you weren't already living nearby then it would be quite an expensive trip just to take a photo of something for Wikipedia). If by any chance you come across a friend or family member who has taken a photo of it, please consider using that and convincing them to release it to Wikimedia Commons. Best wishes, Pericles of Athens  Talk 10:43, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I do my best for wikipedia, Regards Trabelsiismail (talk) 10:53, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Cleopatra bust at the Archaeological Museum of Cherchel, Algeria
The city is not far where I live, now We are in Ramadan and I have work takes a lot of my time and after that I can go there and bring the pictures you request, Hichem algerino (talk) 19:40, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * greetings! This is excellent news. Thank you kindly for agreeing to take on this mission! I'll definitely award you with a shiny Wiki barn-star as a result (it is the least I could do for something this hugely important to Wikipedia). You are doing the whole Wikipedia community a great service by doing this. I hope that you have a wonderful Ramadan celebration with your family. Best wishes and highest regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:47, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much., Hichem algerino (talk) 19:56, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I've got the pictures you requested and other pictures you did not ask for it and you may need it. I will download them tonight, Hichem algerino (talk) 16:57, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

hello again! wow! That is awesome! Thank you very much. I can't wait to see them! Pericles of Athens Talk 17:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

19 pictures are here (Category:Archeological Museum of Cherchell) I hope that they will help you in your work good luck, Hichem algerino (talk) 18:41, 18 June 2018 (UTC)


 * thank you for your service, Hichem Algerino! You've done a great job here. Quick question: when you say "30 years ago" in the image description for Cleopatra, does that mean the plaster cast is 30 years old while the original sculpture is located elsewhere, in safe storage within the museum? I'm confused because this Roman bust of Ptolemy of Mauretania, at File:An ancient Roman bust of Ptolemy of Mauretania3.jpg, says "âgé de environ 15 ans" or in English "about 15 years old". Did you mean to say that Cleopatra was about the age of 30 when the sculpted head was made of her? Pericles of Athens  Talk 20:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I mean that the bust of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt was in the Archeological Museum of Cherchell from 30 years ago and is not 30 years old, according to the director of the museum, Hichem algerino (talk) 21:22, 18 June 2018 (UTC)


 * thanks for letting me know! :) Pericles of Athens  Talk 20:49, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

you welcome, Hichem algerino (talk) 22:12, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

selene article
That article is really great you added to Cleopatra's external links. I had the privilege of being able to get my hands on it during its first publication a couple years ago on JSTOR. Amazing edition to Cleo's page! I'm currently reading Roller's biography of Cleopatra and enjoying it very much, though I'm still not sold on the half Egyptian mother it is still interesting, also comparing it to Grant's argument about Cleopatra V being her mother is fascinating. (Roller is just a really nice, smart dude, I've the pleasure to converse with him.) ANYWAY! Haha. This leads me to the newly republished Selene article and the very recently published in ebook (and next month in hardback) Roller biography of Selene, is Cleopatra Selene II's article page in need of updates / expansion? She fascinates me greatly and this article + Roller's new biography (which I get in hardback on 11 June) both prove worthy editions to her article! Hope all is well and thank you for keeping cleo's page wonderful! Kleopatra Selene (talk) 08:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks! It was a good find, wasn't it? I haven't heard about Roller's biography of Selene, so thanks for bringing that to my attention. That's also pretty cool that you've contacted and talked with him personally. I'll take your advice, too, and keep watch over Cleo's page. Take care, Pericles of Athens  Talk 03:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Ahem...
Oops... Haploidavey (talk) 14:22, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Lol. No worries, bro. Happens to the best of us! Roman Republic has a fine set of images now, doesn't it? Pericles of Athens  Talk 14:36, 31 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I guess so. But it does make one feel like one is loosing one's marbles. Anyway, I've a good excuse (?). My faithful but temperamental ASUS finally died, and I'm using a MacAir. Tiny little screen, and I still haven't figured out how to use multiple windows without losing sequences of edits, or burying one window under several others. Meh. Anyway, while I'm here - your work around here has been particularly awesome of late. And yes, the article certainly has a fine set of images. Kudos, mon brave! Haploidavey (talk) 14:43, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Daqin
Thanks for nominating this for GA, I learned a lot reading through the article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks! I wrote the article a while ago, during the FA nomination of Sino-Roman relations, but I just forgot to nominate Daqin for GA status around the same time. Now that my FAC for Cleopatra seems to be stalled for the moment (delaying my FAC for either History or Government of Macedonia), I'm getting bored and going back through my older articles, nominating them for GA status. Glad you liked the article for Daqin! If you see something in it that could use improvement, by all means discuss it on the talk page or even the review page! Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

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Cleopatra Selene
Hello sir, unfortunately I live far from Tipaza & i can't go there but i asked a friend who in his turn asked another friend who live nearby to take this photos, I know it's not a complete work & there are no photos of Cleopatra (very sorry about that,& i hope Hichem algerino will do a better work) but there are photos of Cleopatra Selene II and (i guess) her son Ptolemy of Mauretania.

again sorry for the incomplete work and have a nice day --Momas (talk) 19:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * hello Momas! Thanks for sharing! These photos look great! But yes, unfortunately these don't contain the Cleopatra bust that I was looking for. However, I still find these ones very useful and they could certainly proudly decorate several Wiki articles. Would that friend of your friend be willing to release these images under a free commercial license, such as the CC0 “No Rights Reserved” public domain license? Sorry, I have to ask this, because before I am able to upload these pictures, I actually have to have explicit permission from the original photographer to do so. See more about that here. If you can somehow confirm that, perhaps by having him send a photo of a short note saying that he releases this under whatever license of his choosing, then I can upload these. Or, alternatively, he could visit Wikipedia, from any computer, and confirm right here on my talk page that he releases it under a specific license. That would probably be easier! Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 20:55, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * the photos were taken for you PericlesofAthens, and you are the owner now and you can upload them of course, i specifically asked my friend to take them for you for the use in Wikipedia, i can show you the message in face book if you want. and if you want i can upload them for you (under my own work). --Momas (talk) 22:50, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * hi again! That's good enough for me, actually! I think that will do. Thanks once again for providing these images and allowing me to release them under a license of my choosing. Warm regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 23:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Daqin
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Daqin you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Carabinieri -- Carabinieri (talk) 21:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Early life of Cleopatra VII copyedit

 * thanks for letting me know! And thanks for your hard work in improving the article. Cheers. Pericles of Athens  Talk 01:20, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Reign of Cleopatra
Hello:

The copy edit that you requested from the Guild of Copy Editors of the article Reign of Cleopatra has been completed. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best of luck with the FA process.

Regards,

Twofingered Typist (talk) 13:05, 5 June 2018 (UTC)


 * thank you kindly! You did a great job. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:13, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Flavius Aetius
There are several "Cited in Jones" in the article, but Jones have two books in Bibliography. How can we know which one the reference is pointing to? --Finn Bjørklid (talk) 14:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
 * sorry, but I didn't write the article, so I have no idea which one is which. Best of luck! Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:34, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, I saw that you have editing it, but do you know who may have been a major contributer? --Finn Bjørklid (talk) 11:48, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Possible Wikipedia-integrated academic publication
Hi Eric,

I came across the articles that you helped to write on the early life, reign, and death of Cleopatra VII.

Would you be interested in putting any/all of them (or any other article) though external, academic peer review for publication in the WikiJournal of Humanities? It's an academic journal in the same format as the medical journal www.WikiJMed.org.

It couples the rigour of academic peer review with the extreme reach of the encyclopedia. It is therefore an excellent way to achieve public engagement, outreach and impact public understanding of science. Peer-reviewed articles are dual-published both as standard academic PDFs, as well as directly into Wikipedia. This improves the scientific accuracy of the encyclopedia, and rewards academics with citable, indexed publications. It also provides much greater reach than is normally achieved through traditional scholarly publishing.

Anyway, let me know whether you'd be interested in putting an article through academic peer review (either solo, or with a team of coauthors). Alternatively, if you would prefer to write on a different topic, we may be able to accommodate you.

Further information at WikiJournal_of_Humanities/Publishing. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 12:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * hello! Thank you for your invitation to publish in the WikiJournal of Humanities. I am very interested in publishing those articles and others in the future if time permits, but unfortunately I can't do anything about it right now. I'll be incredibly busy the next few days. Hopefully a week from now I'll be able to tackle this in earnest. I look forward to it! Kind regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 13:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear it! Submission of Wikipedia material is essentially copy-paste via this page. Feel free to ask any questions along the way. T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 00:45, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Early life, reign, and death of Cleopatra
Congratulations on your successful nomination of Cleopatra! Are you going to nominate Early life of Cleopatra, Reign of Cleopatra and Death of Cleopatra to FA status? Векочел (talk) 20:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks! I will probably nominate one of those very shortly for FA status, after looking over them and seeing if I can spot anything that needs fixing. Pericles of Athens  Talk 22:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for your support on the Isis FAC. I've restructured the article, simply by adding a couple of key headings, since the other reviewers' initial comments, so the version you see now isn't the one they were reviewing. Hopefully they'll find it more readable now.

When I was learning my way around Wikipedia, years ago, your series of articles on Chinese dynasties was my main introduction to what FAs are supposed to be like. To receive a support from you on the biggest and most labor-intensive article I've written is an honor, to say the least. A. Parrot (talk) 07:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * you're welcome! You clearly put your heart and soul into writing the article for Isis. I don't think anyone could accuse it of falling below any of our FA standards. More than that, it exceeds those standards in many cases. It's a fine article and you should be proud of it. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 09:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

honeyskin
Thank you for the message. I just now remembered the good article moderators had a problem with "honey skin." I wonder where she got it from too in terms of she says Cleo's relatives were described that way. Should I take out the honey-skin part and leave her "not dark skinned" remark? You're points are very valid. Kleopatra Selene (talk) 19:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

- It has always bothered me Cleopatras scholars tend to use 'Syrian and 'Persian' interchangebly. In one book Goldsowrthy calls her ancestry Persian, in another Syrian. So it felt very awkward writing that footnote. I'm not sure what to do about it. As far as Schiff, I think I'm going to edit it a bit. Let me know how it looks. ( I'm doing a presentation on Cleopatra right now, btw, so I've thought of you!) Kleopatra Selene (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * excellent! Good luck with your presentation. As for the phrase "Syrian" instead of "Persian", technically this is incorrect, but the otherwise Greek/Persian Seleucid dynasty was centered at Antioch in what is now the very southeastern tip of Turkey, but in antiquity was considered part of Syria (the modern borders of which are nearby this archaeological site). I have seen authors refer to the Seleucids as "the Syrian dynasty", so if anything Seleucid and Syrian are interchangeable terms. This has unfortunately been picked up by some and regurgitated in such a way that it appears that they are conflating native Syrians with ethnic Persians. It's even worse when you consider that "Persian people" proper are Western Iranians, when the Sogdians were an Eastern Iranian people. Culturally they were similar, but not exactly the same. It would be like asserting that the Attic-Ionic Pontic Greeks of Pre-Roman Crimea were the exact same people as Doric Greek Spartans, or that there was absolutely no difference between the Latin Romans and the Oscan Samnites. Surely all those Italic peoples were carbon copies of each other without any differences at all! Lol. Unfortunately this is the sort of intellectual laziness we see when otherwise serious scholars confuse Western and Eastern Iranian peoples of antiquity. Pericles of Athens  Talk 20:59, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * thank you kindly! This was a very thoughtful barn star award. I shall wear it proudly on my user page. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:36, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Cleopatra II of Egypt
Do you think the article on Cleopatra II of Egypt could be nominated successfully for FA status? Векочел (talk) 21:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * that would be a hard no. The article does not look very developed and it also doesn't look like it consults very many scholarly sources. It is well illustrated, but not all the images have licensing tags that will pass muster in an FA review. The article seems to rely mostly on bullet point lists, which marks it as something far below the standards of a featured article. Pericles of Athens  Talk 22:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Marcus Aurelius could be an FA? Векочел (talk) 01:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * that's not a bad suggestion! It seems to need some touching up, rewriting of some prose here and there, and perhaps some more citations for verification, but otherwise the article looks okay. It's also well illustrated with lots of great pictures. You should probably have the guild of copyeditors have a look at it first: WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. Best of luck with that! Pericles of Athens  Talk 03:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Kingdom of Cappadocia
Hey mate. Would you be willing to make some additions to Kingdom of Cappadocia? I made a brief start, but I often had to stick to quotes and such, as I realized I still need to refresh my knowledge about that era. At least in order to make proper steps with that article. I'm not necessarily asking for large scale edits, just a few here and there, in order to add some additional structure, etc. If you have time, of course. I would like to see this article become GA in the foreseeable future. Realistically, of course, I know it still has a long way to go, at least conform the standards we both like to adhere to. - LouisAragon (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

look like you've done a great start on it. I love the topic but can't contribute much to it if at all. I'm busy for the rest of July. And when I say busy I mean every day I have something tightly scheduled. Doing a unique summer job in New York and then Boston. Sorry! Best of luck. Pericles of Athens Talk 13:50, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Aight, no worriessssss. Sounds good, best of luck to you as well! - LouisAragon (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Barnstar
thank you very much! I am honored. Pericles of Athens Talk 13:46, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Daqin
The article Daqin you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Daqin for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Carabinieri -- Carabinieri (talk) 10:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

cleopatra
I'm considering reading Burstein's biography of Cleo, and perhaps adding some of it to the subpages of Cleopatra's wiki (not her main article, because it's so full of great facts it needs no more). Is his biography sufficient enough for academic scholarship? Also, does he, like Roller, say Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek queen in identity and mostly ethnicity, with a possible half Egyptian mother? (Does he take an afrocentric view of Cleopatra? Someone told me he does, which is why I avoid Sally Ashton who is pretty awful and seethingly ant-arab). Thank you! Kleopatra Selene (talk) 21:45, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * hello again! I would definitely suggest you read Burstein's work. It is a solid, serious academic tome filled with lots of great information about the Ptolemies in general and the world of Ptolemaic Egypt, let alone Cleopatra VII. Burstein mentions the possibility and the theory of the whole partial Egyptian heritage thing, but he doesn't have anything to say about Afrocentrism, although I think he does mention Arabs in the context of ethnic minorities in Alexandria and foreign diplomacy with figures like Malichus I of Nabataea. I most certainly wouldn't compare his work to that of Sally-Ann Ashton, who is rather sensational and controversial in that regard. Could I ask you a favor, though? Could you delay your edits of the sub-articles for Cleopatra for a long while? I am planning on submitting them soon to the Wikijournal of the Humanities, and I want to submit versions that have been largely untouched by other editors. Thanks. Pericles of Athens  Talk 01:09, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Roman Republic - pictures
Hi, you can see the pictures I removed here. Some explanations: the first I removed was because there were two photos of a temple on the top of each other and looked a bit like duplicates (space is limited), second and third were bad pictures of coins which I will replace later (I'm a numismatist and have better pics and will write a subsection on currency), fourth was an old map of the "Athenian Empire" illustrating a section on the Macedonian wars, fifth was an old illustration of Gaius Gracchus (I'm not fond of anachronistic pictures, but even so there are better ones than the one used - notably paintings), sixth was the grave relief of Publius Aiedius and Aiedia (dated from the Empire), the last one was a modern engraving after a bust of Caesar (we have original portraits, no need for a modern engraving). The religious section was already empty because it has just been written by Haploidhavey. The picture of Ahenobarbus' altar is still there, but you have added another one (I don't think there's a need for two pictures, could you remove one of them?).

The article is being rewritten as it lost its featured status; of course I intend to add pictures to illustrate the text, but I prefer to write the text first before stacking pictures on the side, and use pictures that are actually relevant. I couldn't explain all that in the edit summary, sorry.T8612 (talk) 22:41, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

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Rise of Macedon
I am young and I have a family...and I rise...and some day I become dominant of my house...but I am ALWAYS MEMBER of my family!!!

FAC
Could you please let me know when/if you decide to re-nominate Government of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) at FAC? I wanted to review it but never found the chance. -- Laser brain  (talk)  20:10, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * hello! Thanks, but I think after that experience I won't be nominating anything for Featured status ever again. I have largely lost interest in Wikipedia because of it. I am content in the knowledge that I have successfully nominated more than twenty FAs, four of them within the past year or so. This recent failure, however, has convinced me that it is not worth my time to wait for Wikipedia to return to the way it was. In terms of its core base of membership it is withering on the vine, so the speak. I wish you the best of luck here if you choose to stay. I will pop in from time to time to check on articles I've created/rewritten, but aside from that I do not plan on making any further significant contributions or nominations of any kind. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 21:35, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hm, would you mind telling me more about what upset you? The lack of reviews? I don't wish to negate how you're feeling about it, but speaking as an FAC coordinator I can say that it happens all the time, even to articles that you'd think would attract more interest. Well, you'll be missed, and I'm sorry to hear that you feel this way. -- Laser brain  (talk)  22:56, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Farewell
It has been a pleasure editing the article on Cleopatra, though you deserve the most credit. Wikipedia will truly be different without editors like you. Векочел (talk) 00:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

See You Soon
Wikipedia could become frustrating sometimes. Just rest for a while and restore your energy. You're a good editor and if you leave WP, we miss you and your great contributions. Hope we see you again. Regards. --Wario-Man (talk) 07:05, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Cleopatra
The surnames we Spaniards use is a small, unimportant mistake, thanks to you for a great article.

I have completed its translation to Wikipedia in Spanish language and now a few million more can read it... :-)

Thank you again and a warm greeting from Galicia. --Furado (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * muchas gracias y de nada, you are welcome, and thank you for writing the whole damn article in Spanish! Wow! Now that's a tribute. I like the way you organized it too with the ancestry section right after the reign of Cleopatra as a monarch section of the article. Great job! Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I noticed that your article lacks one major thing that mine has: the Vatican bust of Cleopatra! You should consider putting it somewhere in the article. Notice how I placed two images of the Vatican bust in the "Greco-Roman busts and heads" sub-section of the English article. As one of the universally accepted busts, it should definitely be in your article somewhere! You at least have the Berlin bust as the lead image, which is good. Pericles of Athens  Talk 06:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ and thank you, any opinion you have will be highly valued.--Furado (talk) 09:14, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the beautiful "Rosetta Barnstar" and for the important title of "Furado I de Galicia", which I will proudly wear; I promise to be generous with my vassals... :)

Regarding the Wikipedia article in Portuguese, I would like to help but, although Galicia has its own language in addition to Spanish, the Galician, which has the same roots as Portuguese and I can read it relatively easily, I don't have enough knowledge to write it with the minimum of quality that the article deserves. I'm sorry.

Thank you again and a warm greeting, Felipe Pérez, aka Furado I de Galicia, aka Furado (talk) 09:47, 2 November 2018 (UTC)


 * You're very welcome! And thank you for being honest. I knew it would be quite a stretch to expect you to know some Portuguese, like expecting a Danish person to know enough Dutch or German, but it was simply my foolhardy hope. LOL. If you know of any Portuguese-speaking Wikipedians who might want to help with that, I'm all ears! If not, take care and thank you once again for all your tremendous hard work. Pericles of Athens  Talk 10:48, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Even Cleopatra struggled with her Greek
First, I want to thank you for all the amazing work you have done on Wikipedia. Although we never interacted, I have noticed your stately namesake in the edit histories of subjects that are passions of mine for a while now. You remain as one of the titans on topics about ancient societies and your contributions to them have greatly benefited amateur philomaths such as myself. I entirely understand why you would retire, especially after such prolific service; but I nonetheless hope you change your mind, if only so that people like me can continue to be informed by your labors. At the very least, I hope to read some works published by you during my ventures through literature on ancient societies—that is, other than the ones you have published here.

Second, your work on the Cleopatra article—and those related to it—is exemplary of what I described above. Given that nearly 90% of the current authorship at Cleopatra is yours, you are undoubtedly the most intimately familiar with it and among the most recent major contributors to it. Consequently, you may appreciate my recent addition to it and the edit summaries I left about it. The moral of the story: Although minor misspellings make one iota of difference, even Cleopatra struggled with her Greek, so don't feel bad if you do, too.

Third, if you ever miss the eternal flux of editing, feel your daimon demanding you to drive some more djeds into the dirt to support this project, or just want to bring you qi back to how it was when you were here, you will always be welcomed back. Whatever you decide, please know that your impact on society was not small at all, considering how many hundreds of thousands read the words you wrote and learn from them. That is a mark of pride better than any barnstar, one I hope you wear well. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 23:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * thank you for the kind words and your diligent care in editing the Cleopatra article. I haven't entirely left Wiki but I will no longer be doing any major edits or nominations of any kind. I will check in from time to time to see if my articles have been horribly vandalized (lol), or if something needs to be touched up a bit. Aside from that I think my work is done here and I don't have the spare time for it anymore anyways! A shame, but that's the truth of it, that and the fact that I've become rather disillusioned with the whole FAC process. Regards. Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my good words seemed too eulogistic! I don't expect any prolific and longtime editor to voluntarily stop volunteering altogether and I'm glad to learn that you won't either. I am considering my first FAC nomination by the end of this year (if the article can pass GA nomination first!), so I am naïve enough to still not be disillusioned with that part of the project yet. Anyway, on that matter, I at least know that the star in the top-right corner is just glitter when it comes to article assessment. Your work is worth featuring regardless of its badge. For what it's worth, I have placed the Cleopatra article on my watchlist, as well, especially since the article is one school vandals students will be consulting often.Whatever it is that has broken Wikipedia's hold over your spare time, I hope it is at least as enjoyable and fulfilling as editing here may have ever been. Again, thanks for the edits! —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 20:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

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Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:37, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Rise of Macedon --> HELLENIC KINGDOM
BUILDING OF NEW WP:CONSENSUS --> SOURCES ATTACHED — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragao2004 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Nationalist arguments about ancient states
If you're tired of arguing about Macedonia, maybe you'd get a chuckle from hearing about the silliest mess left by ancient-history nationalism I've ever cleaned up. Fortunately, it was easy to clean. A. Parrot (talk) 18:51, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'm all ears! What was it? Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:57, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, as you'd expect, the ancient Egypt article went downhill a bit after the editors who wrote it either drifted away from WP or away from the ancient Egypt project. I knew for a long time that junk had accumulated there and created bloat, but I wasn't keeping a close eye on what was being added, and because the article is so big I was daunted by the task of looking it over and cleaning it up. After I uploaded the rewritten version of Isis last December, I decided I should finally tackle it. Comparing the then-current version of the article to the version from 2009 or so, I found it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Mostly people were just adding too many images, which I pruned. There were a lot of bits and bobs of puffery and weird wording. And there was this. Compare that to the length of the section on the New Kingdom, just above.


 * I replaced the excessively detailed section with the old version from 2009, then looked at the edit history to see what the heck had happened. It turned out most of this detail was the work of User:EddieDrood (sometimes using sockpuppets), an ethnic Assyrian trumpeting the glories of the ancient empire. Unlike most POV-pushers, he wasn't saying anything inaccurate, just giving the history sections of the article a wildly unbalanced focus. A bit of the bloat was added by Dailey78, a more reasonable character who nevertheless wanted to emphasize the accomplishments of the Nubians, minimize the differences between Egypt and Nubia, and generally play up the Africanness of Egypt—perhaps justifiably, but he did eventually get sanctioned for going too far with it. Dailey also cut out some stuff by Drood for being uncited and off-topic, although Drood added some of it back later. So what we have in this section is an Assyria fan and a Nubia fan, almost refighting the 2,700-year-old war between Nubia and Assyria over Egypt by adding completely factual but wildly misplaced details to the main article on ancient Egypt. A. Parrot (talk) 19:43, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Nice. You do realize at this juncture that there is only one thing that can be done, right? Get your Indiana Jones hat on, because I see no other choice than for us to break into the Cairo Egyptian Museum and, with the power of Egyptian sorcery, resurrect the mummy of Pharaoh Kamose. Only Kamose has the power to smite the Nubians and smite the Assyrians and bring this article back under native control (per the Wiki editing guide over at Carnarvon Tablet). And I'll be super ready if a FYROM POV-pusher starts coming in too and wrecking the place by claiming that Ptolemy I Soter and Cleopatra were Macedonian Slavs with AK-47s instead of Macedonian Greeks with sarissae and the kopis. :D Pericles of Athens  Talk 21:57, 14 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Nah, I just did this. Resurrecting His Incarnation would be fun, but it's overkill for pruning a Wikipedia article—and I think it could get very messy if I mispronounced the resurrection spell.


 * Speaking of Macedonian POV-pushers, there were a few, years ago, who claimed the Demotic text of the Rosetta Stone was the ancient Macedonian language. Fortunately, that claim remained limited to talk-page posts and went nowhere.


 * As much as it's not what Wikipedia is supposed to be about, I actually find fringe theorists like that kind of funny, as long as they keep their crackpottery confined to the talk pages and don't harass anybody. Ancient Egypt has attracted an amazing variety of those types over the years, and I know more about them than is probably healthy. Some of them you can peg to a particular nationalistic or religious ideology, or an idiosyncratic variety thereof: the Quran alone Muslim convert who sees satanic hallucinogenic symbolism everywhere, the conservative Christian who thinks signs pointing to the Second Coming (which he claimed was scheduled for December 21, 2012) are hidden in religious symbols of all kinds, including the Great Sphinx and the Narmer Palette. But I don't know what was going on with the one who claimed there was some kind of correlation between ancient Egyptian names and people's genome, which somehow meant that Set was a form of Ra, there was no god Horus at all, and that Set looked exactly like Michael Rennie. Or the one who claimed to speak for Khnum-Ra and seemed to be addressing the Pope. Or the one who claimed to have met Martin Luther after World War I and to have met several mythological figures, seemingly including Ra. And so on. A. Parrot (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * LOL. I sympathize with all the woes you've been through. At the same time it almost sounds kinda fun! Grab the popcorn, and maybe some whiskey to wash it down and make it all the more tolerable. Unfortunately the topic of ancient Egypt attracts a lot of nutters, including the ones who think aliens built the pyramids at Giza. The people who study obscure sites like Göbekli Tepe don't realize how blessed they are in being shielded by the craziness of the general populace. LOL. Then again there are all sorts of other areas of study that attract these kinds of charming folk, like the whole Goguryeo debate between Koreans and Chinese people. That's almost enough to make someone never want to study about East Asia ever again! I still torture myself with it, though. Regards, -- Pericles of Athens  Talk 01:43, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, no, those people aren't my woes. They pop in, they pop out, I eat popcorn and wait to see what ridiculous stuff they come up with next. No, the only one who caused me real frustration is the long-term abuser who thinks Ra is God the Father and Osiris is God the Son, and somehow it's all connected to his belief that Armenia is the wellspring of civilization. He does have a knack for being a nuisance. Korean versus Chinese nationalism sounds distinctly less fun. A. Parrot (talk) 02:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I hope you two do not mind me joining in on this conversation, but I just have to tell you about the Lebanese nationalist I encountered who kept earnestly insisting that Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras and other so-called "Greek" philosophers were actually Phoenicians, born and raised in the Phoenician homeland, and he would not rest until it said so in the articles. Whenever I tried to present sources saying they were Greeks he would insult me and accuse me of being a Greek nationalist POV-pusher. Then there was a German nationalist over a year ago at Talk:Wayland the Smith who kept insisting that describing Wayland's rape of Böðvildrn as a rape somehow constituted as "racism against Germans" because Wayland is an important figure in Germanic mythology and is therefore metonymic for all Germans. I responded by explaining to him why that is obviously ridiculous and then added, in German, that almost my entire mother's family is of German ancestry, so the idea that I am racist against Germans does not even make sense.

By the way, regarding Assyrian nationalism, you both may want to know that there is currently a proposal to merge the article "Assyria" (our article about the ancient Assyrian Empires) into the article "Assyrian homeland" (our article about the homeland of modern-day Assyrian people) at Talk:Assyrian homeland. I voted "strongly oppose" to it, but it has not attracted much attention from other editors and the user who proposed it seems, at least from most of his comments, determined to push it through. Strangely, though, the user's last comment there, which mostly seems like a defense of the move proposal against my objections, rather confusingly ends with: "Then l dont think we should merge them." Whatever the user meant by that, he or she has not yet closed the move proposal. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:57, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed. You've had some amusing experiences as well. Thanks for sharing them! A little group talk and therapy is always good. I guess it goes with the territory of having an encyclopedia open to everyone, but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. And neither would Jimbo Wales! Lol. Fun story: I actually met Jimmy Wales in New York once. Nice guy. Told him I had a bunch of featured articles under my belt and I thanked him for giving me the opportunity to project knowledge to the world. Pericles of Athens  Talk 05:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Aha! You speak German? Wait, yes you do, it's on your userpage. Should have noticed earlier. In that case, I may have a favor to ask sometime soon.


 * Anyway, I've looked at the Assyria talk page, and it seems like Nemrud91 may have dropped the idea, though it's hard to tell. This is obviously a newbie who wouldn't know the proper wiki-bureaucratic way to close a merge discussion. Maybe you should ask Nemrud91 to clarify? A. Parrot (talk) 06:08, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Ja, ich kann deutsch sprechen, aber ich kann nicht etwas Versprechen über wie gut es ist machen, weil ich es für nur vier Jahre in Hochschule gelernt. Ich bin weit von fließend. [Yes, I can speak German, but I can make no promises over how good it is, because I only studied it for four years in high school. I am far from fluent.] --Katolophyromai (talk) 06:19, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, realistically speaking, my German speaking abilities are relatively decent; I have been able to carry (short) conversations with native speakers and done fine, but I do tend to stumble over my words and mix up my articles. If you just want me to read or write something in German, I should be able to do that without much trouble, because reading and writing something gives me enough time to think about what I am reading or writing and parse it out in my head. Unfortunately, I can still make no guarantees that anything I write in German will necessarily be perfectly grammatically correct. --Katolophyromai (talk) 06:50, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I couldn't help myself and I had to voice my opposition as well. It is just too damn silly to ignore. Like I said on the page there, it would be like merging Roman Republic into the article on present-day Italy, or merging Han Dynasty into the article on modern China. Pericles of Athens  Talk 06:21, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, I used to ask User:Nephiliskos for this kind of thing, and his English had some... quirks of its own. Anyway, I've never nominated mysteries of Isis for FAC because there are three sources that I feel I need to incorporate in order to be sure it's comprehensive. They're listed in the further reading section for the moment. One of them, Keulen and Egelhaaf-Gaiser, was just difficult for me to lay hands on without buying a hard rather than PDF copy (I don't want to expend physical space on something so specialized and tangential to my main interests), but it looks like it may be easier to get through interlibrary loan now than when I last tried. I have the other two books, Assmann and Bommas 2002 and Bommas 2005, but they're in German. When asking Nephiliskos and Iry-Hor to translate sources for the Isis article, I used Google Translate to figure out which sections had the most relevant passages, took several paragraphs so I felt sure I wasn't treating small passages in isolation and missing their context, and sent them off. I know it's a lot to ask somebody to translate, so I always give an open-ended offer to help with whatever I can, in exchange. (The easiest thing I can offer is sources; do any of these sources seem useful to your future work? Most are about Egypt, but there are plenty on other ancient Mediterranean and religious topics.) A. Parrot (talk) 07:16, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Macedonians
Hi Pericles! It would seem the "Ionians with hats" (Yauna Takabara) of the Achaemenid inscriptions are generally thought of as probably Macedonians A Companion to Ancient Macedonia p.343 p.344. But I leave you judge for the inclusion into the article! You will see in the inscription (attached) that there are two types of Ionians: "Ionians" (Yauna) and "Ionians wearing petasos" (Yauna Takabara). The ethnicities are labelled on the tomb of Darius I. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 14:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * you're more than welcome to add it back to the article if you include scholarly citations and an explanation that they are perhaps Macedonians, but we don't know that with certainty. They could very well just be Ionians from Anatolia, although the hats are distinctly Macedonian. Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:10, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * my major concern was that you added an image with a caption that contradicted the description on the image page where Macedonians aren't mentioned at all. If you add the picture back, please use the scholarly citation format that is used in the rest of the article (see the citations and references sections). Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:12, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much! You're right, it wasn't clear at all where the "Macedonian" interpretation was coming from. I'll put the above reference in the caption (or another reference if I can find a better one).पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 15:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC) PS: I hope you come back from your semi-retirement one day! Your contributions have been so valuable! पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Also, thanks for the kind words. Best of luck with your editing. Pericles of Athens  Talk 15:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Achaemenid map
Hi Pericles! I think User:LouisAragon pinged you for comments on a proposal for a better map of the Achaemenid Empire. Would you have some time to spare to look into the matter? पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 09:21, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. &#32;Macedonia (talk) 10:55, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ^Nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than seeing someone do something obnoxiously stupid and then have it bite them in the ass. Thankfully common sense has prevailed and the article is locked, like it should be so WP:POINTY nationalist POV-pushers like you keep your hands off of it. Pericles of Athens  Talk 13:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Pottery
Hi, do we actually have "plenty of Roman paintings on ceramics"? Some painted ceramic reliefs & figures etc, but I'm not aware of "paintings" on flat surfaces like the Greeks had. Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)


 * That's what I was getting at, as ceramics cover a lot more than just vases. For that matter, the Romans painted stone reliefs and marble statues, so to suggest that frescoes were the only form of Roman paintings that have survived is honestly approaching brain-dead levels of argumentation. That's especially the case since the editor of that passage literally included or just ignored the fact that the Roman-period Fayum mummy portraits are literal paintings on sarcophagi, not walls. Pericles of Athens  Talk 16:41, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, although they are rare, Roman panel paintings like the Severan Tondo also survive, so that alone immediately obliterates the argument in absolute terms the original editor was trying to make. Pericles of Athens  Talk 16:47, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

(Relatively) new EI articles on Sogdia
Thought you might be interested;



- LouisAragon (talk) 13:11, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

thanks for sharing! Pericles of Athens Talk 14:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Always welcome! - LouisAragon (talk) 15:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Culprit
Who wrote "The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings" in history of painting? I found the culprit. It was inserted by Johnbod 11 years ago. He is a very active user here, so is your previous remark still valid? "It's not just wall paintings, you fucking idiot, whoever originally wrote this. Please never edit Wikipedia ever again. Gee thanks." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.110.47.132 (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2018 (UTC)