Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 12

= May 12 =

First knowledge of the Great Pyramid in the West?
Roughly when, and how, did knowledge of the Great Pyramid appear in the West (i.e. London or Paris, rather than the Ottoman Empire or Islamic Spain) ? AFAIK the Crusades didn't get that close to Cairo. There is a fleeting mention of pyramids in a Shakespeare sonnet and of course the story of Cleopatra. Would they have been an item for common reference at that time, as Ancient Rome or Greece were?

My perception is that Rome, Athens or Jerusalem were cultural touch stones for medieval England, but Ancient Egypt or its surviving monuments were not? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Considering Egypt had been ruled directly by a succession of Greek (Ptolemaic Kingdom) and Roman Egypt (Roman province) rulers, it would seem evident that it would be hard to keep such a large building it a secret. How much the average shit-farming peasant knew in Yorkshire in 856 would be one thing, but it would have been odd to imagine that the educated in medieval England would have not known about it.  The accounts of Herodotus would have been well known, and he described them.  The writings of John Mandeville mention the Pyramids of Egypt. Whether or not he actually visited them is up for debate, but he certainly knew enough to at least mention them.  The knowledge of the Great Pyramids should have been known in what you're calling "the West" for as long as "the West" existed.  -- Jayron 32 10:34, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Shit-farming may have been strong in Yorkshire a millenium prior, but from about Description de l'Égypte to the Egypt Exploration Society, the good stuff was grown on the other other side of the world. The pyramids there were pretty great, too. Just saying. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:22, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * More: Here are accounts of various Western medieval writers discussing the Egyptian pyramids; whether the writings are accurate is one thing, but they were clearly aware of them. Western medieval writers noted there include Gregory of Tours, the Irish monk Dicuil, and the aforementioned John Mandeville.  This painting is inside St Mark's Basilica in Venice. -- Jayron 32 10:42, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The Crusaders were in Egypt several times - for example the Fifth Crusade and Seventh Crusade in the 13th century, when they were at the Nile Delta. More relevant to this question are the Crusader invasions of Egypt in the 12th century, when they were certainly in Cairo and Giza. Unfortunately no one seems to have mentioned the pyramids. They definitely saw them though. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * See Early Travelers and Explorers to the Pyramids, Part I: "European travel to Egypt, particularly to see the Great Pyramids at Giza, seems to have been inspired by the Crusaders who returned home with intriguing tales of what they had seen. Soon afterwards a trickle of pilgrims became a stream of travelers. One of the domes of St. Mark's in Venice has a 12th century mosaic of the pyramids as Joseph's granaries, an idea first suggested by the 5th century AD Latin writers Julius Honorius and Rufinus..." Alansplodge (talk) 12:18, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks everyone. The St Marks mosaic is particularly interesting. Adam's comment, " no one seems to have mentioned the pyramids." is what really spurred this. There are numerous descriptions of the sights of Jerusalem or the Crusade castles and at least travel to Egypt, if not Cairo itself, but there seems a surprising lack of mention of these rather large and distinctive monuments. If you'd seen them, surely you'd write about them? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:18, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There is a ton of medieval pilgrimage literature, but did any pilgrims ever go to Egypt? Egeria seems to have gone to Egypt, but not to Cairo. Certainly after the Islamic conquest that would have been difficult/dangerous/inadvisable, and Cairo has no particular significance for Christian pilgrims, so I'm not sure they had any reason to go there. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:34, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems that they did. La description de l’Égypte au XIVe siècle par les pèlerins et les voyageurs occidentaux ("Description of Egypt in the fourteenth century by pilgrims and Western travelers") by Aryeh Graboïs, Université de Haïfa, says (courtesy of Google Translate): "The fall of the Crusader Kingdom in 1291 and the destruction of Acre had a significant impact on shipping in the Mediterranean and Europeans travel to the Middle East. From the beginning of the XIV th century, Italian merchants and especially the Venetians established new outlets in Alexandria, where they obtained privileges from the Mamluk authorities, starting with the consuls facility. This economic development favored the arrival of Western travelers in this emporium, became for them the starting point of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus their Egypt tours were an opportunity to discover an exotic country, they explored mainly in the Nile Valley between Alexandria and Cairo, before starting the route of the desert that brought them Mount Sinai and Palestine". Some brief mentions of Egypt are in ''ITALIAN PILGRIM LITERATURE IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES by J.K. HYDE. Apparently the pilgrims were drawn to sites associated with the Old Testament and also with sites associated with the Flight into Egypt from the Nativity narrative in the Gospel of Matthew. Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Neat, thanks! Adam Bishop (talk) 12:22, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * For those who didn't go to Sunday School, "Joseph's granaries" refers to The Book of Genesis, Chapter 41, Verses 48 and 49; "Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities. In each city he put the food grown in the fields surrounding it. Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure." and then Genesis41:56; "When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt".
 * I also found The Long, Strange History of the Pyramids as the Granaries of Joseph. Apparently, some fundamentalist Christians still hold to that belief. Such a big building with so little storage space inside... Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Psychologists call that the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex. Or they should, anyway. That pyramid is now owned by Hutterite wheat farmers, in any case. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

British chapel at Athens
A draft article on which I am working mentions "the British chapel at Athens". Do we have an article on this, or can anyone point me to more information about it? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Something on plans for the chapel in this 1837 publication - bottom right of page 20. And this 1836 publication - middle paragraph of p. 279. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:48, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Presumably this is St Paul's Anglican Church, Athens, which is "the earliest foreign church in the Greek capital" and was "Consecrated on Palm Sunday in 1843 by the Rt. Rev. George Tomlinson, Bishop of Gibraltar". The church gets a brief mention in Wikipedia in the article about its architect, Christian Hansen, which says: "St. Paul's Church, Athens (1838–1841)". The difference between a church and chapel in this context is probably down to whether it had a resident clergyman or not. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

A street in Athens
Is there still a street in Athens named after Edward FitzGerald Law, the British diplomat? DuncanHill (talk) 11:52, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Our List of streets in Athens has an "Eduardo Lo Street" - can anyone confirm if this is it? DuncanHill (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I can see it on Google maps and on geography.com . Εδουαρδου Λω sounds a reasonable transcription of Edward Law. --Lgriot (talk) 14:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Is antivenin really 2,000 times cheaper in India?
I saw a news item about India's National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority cutting the allowable pharmaceutical prices by 55%. Looking on their site for example, "Specific Antisnake Venom Injection Polyvalent Solutions 1 ml" are capped at "484.76". There would seem to be a strong presumption, though I would like to see confirmation, that they'd be listing those prices in Indian rupees, about 66 to the dollar in 2015, i.e. this price is approximately $7.34 per vial. By contrast, the price in the U.S. is around $14,000 per vial - looking it up, I find articles like this that explain that this is 70% "hospital markup later discounted for insurers", with 27.7% "other costs including licensing fees, FDA fees, regulatory and legal costs, wholesaler fees, hospital profits etc.", and 2.1% for "clinical trials", and just 0.1% for "cost of making the antivenom". Which is to say, $14 per vial. But that is still twice the cost of the retail vial in India, and if I'm going to write a proper polemic against the racketeers who sit in the judgment seat of medicine and call everyone who would circumvent them "unethical", I'd like to make sure that the Indian price isn't based on subsidy or foreign charity. Another article, also Washington Post, says that a vial at the hospital costs $2,300 and ended up turning into a $153,000 hospital bill of which $88,000 was for the venom at retail (with some n of vials, so I don't have a figure there)  So I also wonder if the "apples-to-apples" comparison is between the $7.34 and the $2300, or with the $14000. Is there a good source here to close the case?

More generally, I'd like to confirm whether these values are appropriate commercial figures that can be used, such as in an infobox field for each drug, to list actual prices for the hundreds of drugs in the Indian NPPA registry. Wnt (talk) 14:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that 0.1% seems rather approximate, and might mean anything from 0.05% to 0.15%, or from $7-$21. Also, the cost might be a bit lower for anti-venom produced in India than in the US. StuRat (talk) 04:03, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Immovable judges
Our article on Adolphe Crémieux notes that "as minister of justice he secured the decrees abolishing the death penalty for political offenses, and making the office of judge immovable". Immovable? Is this perhaps some reference to judicial independence, or does it have a different meaning? Nyttend (talk) 14:56, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I suspect this is a machine translation problem; perhaps missing out on some French idiom which got missed. I can find no parallel text at the article at French Wikipedia which would indicate what this means.   -- Jayron 32 15:22, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Our Judiciary of France has: "Inamovibilité "security of tenure": judges cannot be removed from office, except through specific disciplinary proceedings (conducted by the National Judicial Council, an independent tribunal), for infringements on their duties. They may be moved or promoted only with their consent. These protections are meant to ensure that they are independent from the executive power." Presumably before M. Crémieux, judges could be removed at the whim of government ministers.  Alansplodge (talk) 15:24, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * This doesn't seem to be entirely correct. In the following doctoral these (fr), read p.138, "the principle of security of tenure was more or less continuously ensured between 1789 and 1958". Crémieux' own tenure as minister of justice is alluded to on page 136. --Askedonty (talk) 17:07, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It is also in DIRECT contradiction of the French Wikipedia article, which says:
 * "Dès le 31 mars, il demande la démission d’une vingtaine de hauts magistrats et suspend ceux qui refusent d’obtempérer. Ces juges sont suspendus, les uns par Crémieux lui-même, les autres à la demande des commissaires du gouvernement (préfets provisoires). Un décret du 10 août 1849 annule les suspensions de Crémieux (démissionnaire le 5 juin 1848)."
 * That basically says Crémieux tried to fire 20 judges, and it took a Decree (I presume of the National Assembly) to reinstate the judges. Rather than being responsible for preserving security of tenure, he was the one who tried to VIOLATE it.  -- Jayron 32 18:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Adolphe Crémieux would then not be responsible for a decree such as stated in our article. However the above mentioned thesis describes the episode with the 20 judges as a special case:
 * "Adolphe Crémieux prit deux décrets, les 28 janvier et 3 février 1871, afin de révoquer des magistrats qui avaient siégé dans les commissions mixtes en 1852. Or, ce ministre avait déjà exercé des fonctions analogues au sein du Gouvernement provisoire de la Seconde République, et était en conséquence favorable à l’élection des juges. Cependant, l’Assemblée nationale nouvellement élue, et composée en majorité de monarchistes et bonapartistes, annula ces décrets le 26 mars 1871. En définitive, seule la Commune de Paris proclama l’élection des juges au suffrage universel direct, pendant cette période trouble."
 * Mr Crémieux was favorable to a system of elected magistrates. (The author of the thesis seems to be associating this elective process with security of tenure.) Note also that the two very strong decrees mentioned by OP are supposed to have been issued during the 1848 tenure, while the other episode was in 1871. I do not know what to think. --Askedonty (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * According to the French Senate website's biographical account the French language Wikipedia is not wrong and the English language Wikipedia is well informed but wrong regarding Crémieux' alleged second decree: "signa, entre autres décrets : celui qui déclarait que « dans sa pensée la peine de mort était abolie en matière politique »; et ceux qui portaient : abolition de la contrainte par corps « ancien débris de la législation romaine » (9 mars); abolition de la peine de l'exposition publique (12 avril); etc. M. Crémieux procéda dans le personnel de la magistrature à un certain nombre de révocations que le parti conservateur lui reprocha vivement." Crémieux signed various decrees of liberal inspiration among them one following which: "in his mind, death penalty was abolished in case of a political motivation". The suspension of magistrates occurred in 1848 but the Senate does not keep a serious count of them: "un certain nombre de revocations" and does not mention any decree regarding that episode. --Askedonty (talk) 20:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC) Erratum, the Senate was only quoting: "Extrait du « Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français », Robert et Cougny (1889)" --Askedonty (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It's normal that an employee can only be promoted with his consent (anything else would be a breach of the contract of employment).  Again, moving someone against his will may also be a breach, depending on the terms of the contract.   There is an office on the tenth floor of the Royal Courts of Justice (opposite the old site of Temple Bar) which handles recidivist judges who won't resign.   There are often news stories about judges misbehaving, but these generally relate to "district judges" who are basically magistrates or the old county court registrars under a new name.   Once appointed to the High Court a judge is expected to stay there for life although there are opportunities for promotion.   One did resign to return to private practice (many take a substantial cut in their remuneration when they accept an appointment).   One was allocated a high - profile case expected to last months.   He made a comment which suggested he might not be totally free from bias, and the upshot was that when he arrived at his court to open the case he spent a long time sitting on the bench wondering why nobody had turned up.   In fact the case had been re - listed for hearing by another judge along the corridor.   I remember on one occasion, in a case before the Court of Appeal, walking towards the designated court we saw a large gathering with reporters ahead of us.   It turned out they had come for a case involving a controversial writer in the court next door and we had the place to ourselves.

Is kohl popular in Israel?
--Romanophile (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It used to be. -- Jayron 32 01:12, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * An interesting reference, in particular regarding the medicinal use (it says treating one eye was permitted on the Sabbath, but doing two for cosmetic purposes was prohibited "work"). Searching kohl notes that it was originally stibnite, even if people in the modern era have lost their scientific sophistication and resorted to crushing galena, with attendant lead toxicity.  And stibnite was praised by Muhammad, oddly enough, as an excellent collyrium - the same use as suggested in the link above.  Searching antimony and antibacterial on PubMed finds that it was and remains a useful treatment against leishmaniasis,  which can cause blindness.   But that's a rare complication.  Which leaves me with the interesting question of what common ailment for which "clearing the vision" is needed and can be produced by antimony - maybe the ancients have some things left to teach us?  And regarding the original question, perhaps there's a chance we'll find it fell out of favor at the same time as some pathogen became uncommon. Wnt (talk) 02:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems to be a rarity in contemporary Israel. A Hebrew-language search via Google yields references to antiquities ("kohl utensils") and historic use in cosmetics. The Hebrew Wikipedia has no page for Kohl (cosmetic) and the Arabic Wikipedia has a brief page with illustrative photos of the substance and an antique case. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:53, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ETA: The Arabic article makes uncited mention of its use among the Bedouin in the eyes of newborn children as a prophylactic against eye diseases. "Masa Akher," a Hebrew-language Israeli travel magazine published this article, "Kohl - a vanishing tradition" (Ayelet Ben-Meir; original publication date unclear). I'll read it and add any pertinent information to the Kohl (cosmetic) page and here, later.  -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The above article makes little mention of current use in Israel. The author goes to Shefa-'Amr in northern Israel to interview a kohl-maker, an older woman called Umm Nasr. The latter describes and demonstrates the process of concocting the eyeliner form, which she bottles in glass. A later discussion in the article notes the use of kohl by Yemenite Jews in the eyes, to stop nosebleeds and promote healing of infected wounds, but states that the extra-ocular applications has ceased due to the substance's toxicity. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)