Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bone spectacles


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. The significant questions raised about the verifiability of this article make the case and consensus for deletion overwhelmingly strong. Mkativerata (talk) 01:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Bone spectacles

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Orphan article backed solely by a single Iranian research paper of extremely dubious quality. Lacking other references even within the world of woo-woo, I see no support for promulgating this bit of Persian Forteana. Mangoe (talk) 22:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete It's a WP:REDFLAG claim that even the OOPart crowd hasn't bothered to recognize. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions.  — &mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  — &mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - agree REDFLAG. A formal report was just published last year and there has yet to be any scholarly response that I could find, so an article is probably premature. (Not directly relevant, but the formal publication is not convincing at all - anytime an archaeological find is published in a national journal of ophthalmology, it is not a good sign.) Agricolae (talk) 14:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep -- The article cites six sources, mostly described as in Persian (presumably Farsi). I would guess that these consist of an archaeological report of 1962 on the excavation and one article interpreting the find, whose conclusions have then been repeated in several books - tertiary sources, but still potentailly WP:RS, and in a 2010 journal that might only be a trade rag - I may be wrong.  The excavation report will be a WP:RS.  The interpretation article is presumably from an academic source, which will also be WP:RS.  Whehter the interpretation is correct is a different question, but without a source that questions it, a WP article doubting the conclusions would be WP:OR.  I agree that the find is an oddity, but if not spectacales, what is it?  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a mask, perhaps. But anyway, of the nine references I see, the second is certainly spurious (if Daniel Boorstin wrote about bone spectacles, we wouldn't have waited forty years to find out about it), and I would assume that the third is as well. Really, the only possibly valid reference here is Burney's report, and while I do have access to JSTOR it is reasonable to expect a page number. The Farsi version of this article has the ophthalmology reference and a second paper by some of the same authors, and none of these other references, so I don't think these other Farsi citations would prove germane if they were followed through. Mangoe (talk) 17:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll go further and say the Opthalmology paper seems to be the only source making the extraordinary claim that spectacles existed in 3000 BC Persia. There's no evidence that Burney believed he'd found spectacles. The authors state they only "studied" Burney's excavation records of bone artifacts unearthed at the site, and found: "Professor Bernie had been quiet on the issue, yet, Dr. Sarfaraz had believed that one day, it would be proved that they were spectacles." - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It has been reported on the fringe theory noticeboard that Burney's paper does not say anything about this object being spectacles. Mangoe (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * {sorry for some duplication of what others have said - it took me so long to type this response that there have been some edit conflicts.} The recent article says that the author of the 1962 archaeological report "has been quiet on the issue" suggesting that the 1962 report is not an RS for these being spectacles. It also says that the author of the more recent report "had believed that one day, it would be proved that they were spectacles," which makes it sound more like it is presented more as a suggestion than a scholarly determination that they are spectacles.  Given that these are the two authors represent the primary record, I have to wonder what, exactly, is being said in the various cited 'History of Archaeology' and 'History of Science' works. It is a little hard to tell from their citation, but they look like translation into Persian from English-language references, yet try as I might, I am not turning up originals via Google search that say anything about ancient spectacles at this site. That leaves us with the most recent report, but a journal of ophthalmology is not a reliable source for an archaeological discovery. I don't know if it is a trade rag, but it's certainly no JAMA. Such claims are not uncommon in science, but they are treated more like curious suggestions unless/until they get evaluated by the broader field, and I see no indication that such an evaluation has taken place. Without some response from the archaeological community, there is nobody to look at the article and say how bad it really is, and it is. Parts of it are barely comprehensible due to an issue with the translation, but where the underlying logic is clear, it is circular or flawed. (I could go on for a paragraph on the ridiculous nature of the hypothesized stream-tumbled quartz lenses alone.)  I get the distinct impression that this is a fringe interpretation, suggested by one researcher in a 'wouldn't this be interesting if it was the case' kind of way, and then bought into by a small group of people with an occupational vested interest in that particular interpretation, and not accepted by the broader community.  I may be wrong, but the lack of coherent and detailed citations (e.g. "5- Sarfaraz.A.A. is main archaeologist in Excavation at Yanik tepe, Azerbaijan1962: third preliminary report") and the language issues make it difficult to tell. FRINGE material making extraordinary claims doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. At most it deserves a line on a page about the excavation saying that they discovered an object that some have interpreted as ancient spectacles. (As to your question of what it is, that depends on whether it was really found on the nose of the skull, as indicated in the ophthalmic journal.  If so, it was probably a burial mask, the absence of any sort of strap or lens attachment militating against functionality.)  Agricolae (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Very clearly REDFLAG stuff. The citations are confused and the claims are not properly sourced. The thing looks like some type of face mask. There seems to be no actual evidence that it ever held lenses. Paul B (talk) 16:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and what has been said above. Very Red Flag type article of dubious quality.  --Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:02, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.