Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayan Lamp


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 02:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Mayan Lamp

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

To the best of my knowledge, lamp-making does not figure as a significant cultural tradition among Maya peoples, historical or contemporary. While it's quite possible that lamps are among the many types of products, crafts & trinkets manufactured and sold by modern Maya locally or to the tourist trade, this in itself is insufficient to demonstrate notability & encylopaedic significance for the manufacture or product. The article's creator seems themselves to be associated with a business selling such products, and there's nothing really here to suggest that calling the product is anything other than a marketing technique. If it were to be established as a genuine & significant Maya craft, then you'd expect there to be multiple independent mentions in the ethnographic literature (as is the case for example with Maya textiles, a craft with a long history and the subject of quite a few books and ethnographic/art history articles and exhibitions). However I have been unable to find any such mentions of Maya lamp-making; unless such mentions can be provided then the claims of a business selling them is not enough to verify adequate notability. cjllw ʘ  TALK 23:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * weak Keep and source. this is not easy to search, as there are many other meanings, but some of the items in seem to indicate a characteristic style, such as the travel guide .  See also G Scholar, such as   . Weak keep only  because I havent looked systematically to see the importance DGG (talk) 00:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. The "sources" adduced by DGG don't appear to have any relation to the modern commercial handicraft dealt with in this article, and they do not, in fact, establish the existence of a distinctive tradition of Mayan lampmaking. The nominator is correct that this seems to be intended as promotion by someone selling lampshades. Deor (talk) 02:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * comment DGG is right about the difficulties in filtering out unrelated hits, but even so those that are halfway relevant do not IMO support this article. One of those hits given is a description of some hotel's room furnishings, w lamps painted in Maya-like designs (but surely in imitative reproduction, not original). I have a copy of Gann's 1918 Maya ethnographical study, and the Maya lamps he discusses are of the earthenware or soapstone variety, that would've been filled with cohune or coconut oil and lit with a wick. While these are genuine artefacts (both pre- and post-conquest) sculpted with some interesting motifs, as an artefact type I don't think that such lamps are that uncommon or unusual to be used as archaeological markers or studied as some distinct technique. At best, some mention might possibly be made at Maya ceramics or suchlike. However, clearly these are not the type of lamp that the article's creator had in mind. Reviewing their deleted contribs, I see Thai lamp got short shrift & was speedied, and before its deletion under G11 the article on their business selling lamps was clearly promoting modern lamps marketed as exotic handicrafts. --cjllw ʘ  TALK 02:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom, as well as above comment. ~ Pip 2  andahalf  04:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: as above. Is there any reason to believe there are sources attesting to the unusual and distinctive of Mayan lamps, so different from any others as to warrant forking off from Oil lamp?   RGTraynor  17:26, 7 November 2008 (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.