Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-03-24 Aratta

Please please please keep discussion on Aratta's talk page

Who are the involved parties?

 * User:Til Eulenspiegel
 * User:Sumerophile

What's going on?
Protracted disputes on section regarding location hypotheses for the Aratta of Sumerian tablets. Many books have been published speculating on this question ever since the first translation was published by Samuel Kramer, to whom much of Sumerian studies is indebted. There are basically four schools of thought on this question:


 * 1) Aratta may have been located somewhere on the Iranian Plateau: Samuel Kramer (1963), Georgina Herrmann (1968), Sol Cohen (1973), Yousef Majidzadeh (1976, 2004), J.F. Hansman (1978), among others.
 * 2) Aratta of the Sumerian texts may be identified with the Aratta of Sanskrit texts including the Mahabharata. This school of thought usually places Aratta in the more easterly parts of the plateau or beyond (Afghanistan, Indus Valley, Punjab, etc): D. D. Kosambi (1956), Malati Shendge (1977), Michael Witzel (1999, 2001), Koenraad Elst (1999), Alexander Jacob (2005), Sanujit Ghose (2004), Gregory Possehl (1996), many others
 * 3) Aratta may have located in the Lake Van region and is connected with the former Urartu and Ararat: David Rohl (1998), Merlin Stone (1976), Thomas J. Samuelian (2000, 2004), Andrew Lawler (2004), Artak Movsisan (2001), R. Bedrosian (1993), Yervant Kasouni (1950), many others
 * 4) Aratta did not exist at all, and was purely mythical, and the solid geographic references to it in the epics are therefore irrelevant: Piotr Steinkeller (1999), Herman L. J. Vanstiphout (2003), Daniel T. Potts (2004)

All four of these schools of thought are accompanied by scholarly literature. Sumerophile has made it clear that he subscribes to #4, but has allowed #1 to be in the article (except in the case of Dr. Majidzadeh, where his 1976 view may apparently be mentioned, but not his current view that has been making recent headlines). But he has declared that #2 and #3 should not be in the article, and has fought to that end. Edit wars have ensued, and all that good stuff.

(condensed by Xavexgoem (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

What would you like to change about that?
I would like for the FULL range of expert opinions on Aratta's possible location from scholarly and reliable references, easily found anywhere else outside of wikipedia, to be included in the article - that means not just the views that it was somewhere in Iran, but also all the various other cited and significant views that it was anywhere from Punjab to Mt. Ararat. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Mediator notes
Discussing in talk. Hopefully won't move it to the case page Xavexgoem (talk) 15:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Frustrated. Closing. Xavexgoem (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
In response to Seddon69 above, this has been dragging on mostly between the two of us for weeks; so far we have still been unable to come to any agreement on this, although during all this time I have been trying in numerous places to solicit third opinions. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

So the three main "existing" views are: region around Western Iranian Plateau, areas east of that (Indus Valley, e.g.), and north into Armenia? (This is to help me condense, I figure; I'm interested in the nuances, besides. (Take note ;-) ) Xavexgoem (talk) 21:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, basically... and anyone who researches "Aratta" can find that out with little effort...! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Closure
Since this is being closed, I followed the mediator's advice and filed Requests for mediation/Aratta‎. However, this page still serves as a useful summary of my complaint, so I am updating the info here and hopefully won't have to type it out all over again on a new page! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)