Talk:Ancient Egypt

Legacy Section

The legacy section only briefly covers Ancient Egypt's impact on global architecture and popularity among people. It does not even mention Egyptian hieroglyph's influence on Phoenician, and therefore Latin, script. I'm no expert, but a legacy section on this particular civilization should be at least three times as large. Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 22:36, 9 September 2011 (UTC))

I agree. What about coming up with the first monotheistic religion for a start? 2.97.164.136 (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Atenism isn't necessarily monotheistic - that's disputed. Dougweller (talk) 13:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes to the article

Normally I do not revert major edits outside of vandalism, but I really do feel that the changes in this article over the past few days, although well-intentioned, have compromised its quality. Before these edits, the article was little changed from when it received FA status, and even taking into account the lower FA standards of four years ago, I thought it was in pretty good shape. I am open to discussing these changes, but until they are discussed, I have reverted them.

Because this reversion is so significant, I am listing several of my specific objections below.

• First, there is the excessive bolding, in section headings and in several linked terms. The only usual place to use boldface in an article is on the article title at the start of the lead section; see WP:MOSBOLD.

• Use of alternative terms with slashes, like "Menes/Narmer" and "Napatan/Kushite/Nubian". This is a clumsy way of writing alternative names for things. Usually we don't need to give alternative names in article text except in the article on that particular thing. The links take care of the rest; instead of saying "Khufu, also known as Cheops, built the Great Pyramid", we can say "Khufu built the Great Pyramid", and the link will show to anyone who is confused that Khufu and Cheops are the same person. With these particular examples, the different terms actually mean different things. Menes is a legendary figure who may represent a distorted memory of one of the early pharaohs or a composite of several. Narmer is a single early pharaoh who may have unified the country, may have lived before or after the actual unification, or may have been part of a gradual process of unification. "Nubia" is a general term for the land south of the First Cataract and "Kush" and "Napata" are names for the culture of Nubia in particular periods.

Recent changes to the article

Normally I do not revert major edits outside of vandalism, but I really do feel that the changes in this article over the past few days, although well-intentioned, have compromised its quality. Before these edits, the article was little changed from when it received FA status, and even taking into account the lower FA standards of four years ago, I thought it was in pretty good shape. I am open to discussing these changes, but until they are discussed, I have reverted them.

Because this reversion is so significant, I am listing several of my specific objections below.

• First, there is the excessive bolding, in section headings and in several linked terms. The only usual place to use boldface in an article is on the article title at the start of the lead section; see WP:MOSBOLD.

• Use of alternative terms with slashes, like "Menes/Narmer" and "Napatan/Kushite/Nubian". This is a clumsy way of writing alternative names for things. Usually we don't need to give alternative names in article text except in the article on that particular thing. The links take care of the rest; instead of saying "Khufu, also known as Cheops, built the Great Pyramid", we can say "Khufu built the Great Pyramid", and the link will show to anyone who is confused that Khufu and Cheops are the same person. With these particular examples, the different terms actually mean different things. Menes is a legendary figure who may represent a distorted memory of one of the early pharaohs or a composite of several. Narmer is a single early pharaoh who may have unified the country, may have lived before or after the actual unification, or may have been part of a gradual process of unification. "Nubia" is a general term for the land south of the First Cataract and "Kush" and "Napata" are names for the culture of Nubia in particular periods.

• Most importantly, there is the addition of excessive detail for an overview article on a massive subject. See WP:Summary style, and keep in mind that this article was already long before the major tinkering started. For example, an entire section on the "Napatan/Kushite/Nubian Renaissance" is not necessary, because Nubia is outside the purview of this article except where it interacted with Egypt. Nubia did interact with Egypt a lot, and the story of the Twenty-fifth dynasty needs to be told in detail—but not in this article, where it should be described very briefly. A century is not a very long span in the history of a civilization as long-lived as Egypt, and history is only a portion of this whole article. Egyptian history has a lot of sub-articles where such information could more usefully be placed, whereas the information about Egypt's technology and societal structure is equally important and often lacks sub-articles.

• There is also an issue of outdated information. I have never heard, for instance, of the Anu culture. The only source provided for it is a book by Flinders Petrie, who was a brilliant archaeologist for his time, but who is now long out of date. Some of the Predynastic cultures he identified are now dismissed as illusory. More recent analysis would be needed before we can even begin to decide if and where to mention the Anu culture in Wikipedia.

• Finally there are aesthetic problems: images and white space. User:Drift chambers added a huge amount of white space without explanation. Subsequent edits have since removed it, but I would like to know what he or she was attempting to do. There were a lot of images, and it's therefore possible that the text looked really crowded on his or her screen. If crowding needs to be eliminated, I'm open to discussing which images should stay and go. That said, I would like to keep the Giza pyramid image at the top of the screen. There's no rule that the lead should have only one image, and because of the space provided by the table of contents, image crowding is less of a problem at the top. And what more iconic image of ancient Egypt could one imagine than the pyramids surrounded by sand?

I am open to discussion on any of these points, but please, discuss before you edit. A. Parrot (talk) 18:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

Most of your points are well taken. I appreciate the civility and tone of your commentary.

However:

• Any article on Ancient Egypt should include an image of the sphinx at Giza. The sphinx at Giza is easily in the top 3 most recognizeable icons of the Ancient Egyptian society. It's the largest monolithic statue on Earth and a pic should be included. I added a small pic of the sphinx at Giza in the tourism section at the bottom of this article and I think that the world community would agree that a pic of the sphinx at Giza is reasonable for an article on Ancient Egypt. Therefore, I will add this small pic back immediately.

• North Africa is a geopolitical entity, as opposed to just a region. It's misleading and inappropriate to link to North Africa in the context of an article on Ancient Egypt, as there was no such geopolitical entity as North Africa during Ancient Egyptian history. The people that have recently occupied North Africa (Arabs in 7th century and Turks in 14th century) were not responsible for the Ancient Egyptian civilization. The statement implies that Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, etc. played some significant role in Ancient Egypt and that somehow ancient egypt was disconnected from sub-saharan africa, which we know is not true due to extensive trade with sub-saharan africa (for ivory, gold, incense, etc.) throughout Ancient Egyptian history. I will allow some time for you and others to comment, but I think Northeastern Africa is a more accurate and fair statement than the current "eastern North Africa" phrase. The formatting seems strange to most English speakers, as we wouldn't say eastern North United States. We would say Northeastern United States. It's cleaner.

• There are a sufficient number of Egyptian towns, fortresses, temples, etc. in Northern Sudan to say that the Ancient Egyptian civilization was located in what is now the modern country of Egypt, as well as Northern Sudan. Egyptian towns in modern Sudan, such as Pnubs, attest to this fact. Abu Simbel and Qustul straddle the border with Sudan.

• Mention of the Great pyramids at Giza and the sphinx should be included in the Old Kingdom section, as these are the crowning achievements of the Old Kingdom. A short statement that they were built during the Old Kingdom should suffice, as the links to the Great Sphinx of Giza and Giza pyramids will tell their story in more detail.

• I am concerned that the Menkaura pic is exceedingly large for a survey page and doesn't allow space for other important figures. Menkaura isn't even mentioned by name in the Old Kingdom section so the uninformed reader has no way of knowing why Menkaura deserves such a large and prominent pic in the article. I propose that we replace the existing Menkaura pic with one of Khufu. Khufu built the largest pyramid at the Giza necropolis and Menkaura built the smallest one. Representation in the article should be proportionate to contribution to the society.

• The architecture section would benefit from a picture of Hatshepsut's temple. It preceded the Parthenon and is one of the world's greatest examples of symmetry in architecture.

• The architecture section has a misleading and false statement about the abandonment of pyramid building after the Middle Kingdom. It's true that pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. However, it is also a fact that pyramids were built by Ancient Egyptian pharaohs during the Late period by the Napatan, or 25th dynasty. There are a tremendous number of pyramids in Sudan that were built by Ancient Egyptians. According to all accounts that I have read, there are more Ancient Egyptian pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt.

• I agree with your commentary that discussion of the Napatan dynasty was too long for a survey article. However, I disagree with the current structure and will cite my work when a much shorter rewrite is added back to the article. Many Egyptologists do not place the 25th dynasty in an intermediate period. Jean Vercoutter is an example. The 25th dynasty expanded the Ancient Egyptian territorial claims to an area that was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom. They reunited upper and lower Egypt, as it was clear that preceding dynasties had little control over upper Egypt even in the area of Thebes. They had the support of Thebes and were viewed as returning Egypt to the cultural, artistic, architectural, and religious norms of the Old, Middle, and New kingdoms. The 25th dynasty rebuilt and restored temples in the traditional ancient egyptian style, including additions to the Temple at Karnak. They were mentioned in the bible. This was one of Egypt's high periods of imperialism and renaissance. This is hardly an intermediate period and deserves its own paragraph in the Intermediate or Late section of this article. Since I agree that the first stab at it was too long, I will focus next time on rewriting the existing verbage on the 25th dynasty and consolidating the new information into a few short sentences.

Dailey78 (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)dailey78

I don't disagree with most of this. A few more points to consider:

• If scholars disagree about which period the 25th dynasty belongs in, that puts us in something of a bind: how do we stay neutral when we have to choose to put it in one section or the other? Maybe we could combine the Third Intermediate and Late Period sections; the resulting section wouldn't be terribly long, although it might seem a little out of balance compared with the limited space given to the three kingdoms. I don't know.

• Egyptologists generally see Napata as a separate civilization from Egypt, although of course closely linked with it and ruling over it for several decades. The Napatan pyramids would not, therefore, count as entirely Egyptian. But the Egyptians did build (much smaller) pyramidal structures after the Middle Kingdom, including one as a royal tomb (Ahmose I). Maybe the article could say that after the Middle Kingdom they ceased to build large-scale pyramids, but the pyramid motif remained important in Egyptian architecture.

• The image of Menkaure is inconveniently long, but Khufu's statue isn't in good shape. I suggest the image at Khafre Enthroned, which is sensibly short. Khafre's building achievements were similarly grand (pyramid nearly as big as his father's, pyramid temple way bigger, plus sphinx). And the statue itself is regarded as a masterpiece of Old Kingdom artwork—the epitome of pharaonic deification and timelessness.

• The architecture section is already a bit cramped, so I wouldn't advise adding another image. The column image shows the massive nature of Egyptian architecture and the Edfu image shows a distinctive Egyptian architectural form, the pylon. Perhaps a better image of the Edfu pylon can be found (see this category), but it is very symmetrical. And—forgive me for being an architectural philistine—to me the temple of Hatshepsut at a distance just looks like several rows of very large slots.

• A very niggling point, but I would prefer not to have two images in the small legacy section. The photo you added has only one tourist, and the camels-by-pyramids one doesn't have many, so it might be preferable to have one image that has more of a sense that sightseers are flocking. This is the best I could find. It's not an especially good shot of the sphinx, but at least it's there. A. Parrot (talk) 04:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think we're in agreement on practically every point, so we shouldn't have to spend much more time on this. I don't think it's worth the trouble to reorganize the intermediate and late period sections. I will leave the 25th dynasty text in its current location, although I may rearrange and tweak the text a little. It will be very short and a couple of sentences max. I will wait a little longer for more discussion first.

• However, I still feel that we are doing a disservice to the Ancient Egypt survey article if we do not include some image of the sphinx. I'm not partial to any particular section. I'm not partial to any particular image. I strongly feel that somewhere in the article we should find space to include an image of the sphinx. Dailey78 (talk) 02:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)dailey78

• Made the pics in the legacy section smaller to address A. Parrot's aesthetic concerns. The smaller pics allow the "Notes" section to regain the full width of the page using Chrome as my browser. This also addresses my concern that the entire Ancient Egypt article does not have a single pic of the sphinx. Hopefully, this is an agreeable compromise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dailey78 (talk • contribs) 03:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I will leave the decision to A. Parrot and Wdford. Do what you think is best. I've said enough. My two cents is that the previous picture of all pyramids at the Giza necropolis was a particularly beautiful pic of the pyramids. I know that it doesn't address the sphinx concern. Whatever you guys come up with, I will not touch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dailey78 (talk • contribs) 22:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Can we get the image of the Giza pyramids reinstated somewhere in the article? This one: . It is easily one of the most beautiful images in the article, and the pyramids are unquestionably the symbol of Ancient Egypt. I appreciate that some people are such enthusiastic advocates for the sphinx, but we have two images of it in the article already, and no image that shows the pyramids in their entirety! This is a featured article about Ancient Egypt, and we have a featured image of the pyramids readily available, so there is absolutely no reason at all why it shouldn't have a very prominent place in the article.--76.121.180.74 (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.71.81.202 (talk)

• Most importantly, there is the addition of excessive detail for an overview article on a massive subject. See WP:Summary style, and keep in mind that this article was already long before the major tinkering started. For example, an entire section on the "Napatan/Kushite/Nubian Renaissance" is not necessary, because Nubia is outside the purview of this article except where it interacted with Egypt. Nubia did interact with Egypt a lot, and the story of the Twenty-fifth dynasty needs to be told in detail—but not in this article, where it should be described very briefly. A century is not a very long span in the history of a civilization as long-lived as Egypt, and history is only a portion of this whole article. Egyptian history has a lot of sub-articles where such information could more usefully be placed, whereas the information about Egypt's technology and societal structure is equally important and often lacks sub-articles.

• There is also an issue of outdated information. I have never heard, for instance, of the Anu culture. The only source provided for it is a book by Flinders Petrie, who was a brilliant archaeologist for his time, but who is now long out of date. Some of the Predynastic cultures he identified are now dismissed as illusory. More recent analysis would be needed before we can even begin to decide if and where to mention the Anu culture in Wikipedia.

• Finally there are aesthetic problems: images and white space. User:Drift chambers added a huge amount of white space without explanation. Subsequent edits have since removed it, but I would like to know what he or she was attempting to do. There were a lot of images, and it's therefore possible that the text looked really crowded on his or her screen. If crowding needs to be eliminated, I'm open to discussing which images should stay and go. That said, I would like to keep the Giza pyramid image at the top of the screen. There's no rule that the lead should have only one image, and because of the space provided by the table of contents, image crowding is less of a problem at the top. And what more iconic image of ancient Egypt could one imagine than the pyramids surrounded by sand?

I am open to discussion on any of these points, but please, discuss before you edit. A. Parrot (talk) 18:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

Most of your points are well taken. I appreciate the civility and tone of your commentary.

However:

• Any article on Ancient Egypt should include an image of the sphinx at Giza. The sphinx at Giza is easily in the top 3 most recognizeable icons of the Ancient Egyptian society. It's the largest monolithic statue on Earth and a pic should be included. I added a small pic of the sphinx at Giza in the tourism section at the bottom of this article and I think that the world community would agree that a pic of the sphinx at Giza is reasonable for an article on Ancient Egypt. Therefore, I will add this small pic back immediately.

• North Africa is a geopolitical entity, as opposed to just a region. It's misleading and inappropriate to link to North Africa in the context of an article on Ancient Egypt, as there was no such geopolitical entity as North Africa during Ancient Egyptian history. The people that have recently occupied North Africa (Arabs in 7th century and Turks in 14th century) were not responsible for the Ancient Egyptian civilization. The statement implies that Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, etc. played some significant role in Ancient Egypt and that somehow ancient egypt was disconnected from sub-saharan africa, which we know is not true due to extensive trade with sub-saharan africa (for ivory, gold, incense, etc.) throughout Ancient Egyptian history. I will allow some time for you and others to comment, but I think Northeastern Africa is a more accurate and fair statement than the current "eastern North Africa" phrase. The formatting seems strange to most English speakers, as we wouldn't say eastern North United States. We would say Northeastern United States. It's cleaner.

• There are a sufficient number of Egyptian towns, fortresses, temples, etc. in Northern Sudan to say that the Ancient Egyptian civilization was located in what is now the modern country of Egypt, as well as Northern Sudan. Egyptian towns in modern Sudan, such as Pnubs, attest to this fact. Abu Simbel and Qustul straddle the border with Sudan.

• Mention of the Great pyramids at Giza and the sphinx should be included in the Old Kingdom section, as these are the crowning achievements of the Old Kingdom. A short statement that they were built during the Old Kingdom should suffice, as the links to the Great Sphinx of Giza and Giza pyramids will tell their story in more detail.

• I am concerned that the Menkaura pic is exceedingly large for a survey page and doesn't allow space for other important figures. Menkaura isn't even mentioned by name in the Old Kingdom section so the uninformed reader has no way of knowing why Menkaura deserves such a large and prominent pic in the article. I propose that we replace the existing Menkaura pic with one of Khufu. Khufu built the largest pyramid at the Giza necropolis and Menkaura built the smallest one. Representation in the article should be proportionate to contribution to the society.

• The architecture section would benefit from a picture of Hatshepsut's temple. It preceded the Parthenon and is one of the world's greatest examples of symmetry in architecture.

• The architecture section has a misleading and false statement about the abandonment of pyramid building after the Middle Kingdom. It's true that pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. However, it is also a fact that pyramids were built by Ancient Egyptian pharaohs during the Late period by the Napatan, or 25th dynasty. There are a tremendous number of pyramids in Sudan that were built by Ancient Egyptians. According to all accounts that I have read, there are more Ancient Egyptian pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt.

• I agree with your commentary that discussion of the Napatan dynasty was too long for a survey article. However, I disagree with the current structure and will cite my work when a much shorter rewrite is added back to the article. Many Egyptologists do not place the 25th dynasty in an intermediate period. Jean Vercoutter is an example. The 25th dynasty expanded the Ancient Egyptian territorial claims to an area that was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom. They reunited upper and lower Egypt, as it was clear that preceding dynasties had little control over upper Egypt even in the area of Thebes. They had the support of Thebes and were viewed as returning Egypt to the cultural, artistic, architectural, and religious norms of the Old, Middle, and New kingdoms. The 25th dynasty rebuilt and restored temples in the traditional ancient egyptian style, including additions to the Temple at Karnak. They were mentioned in the bible. This was one of Egypt's high periods of imperialism and renaissance. This is hardly an intermediate period and deserves its own paragraph in the Intermediate or Late section of this article. Since I agree that the first stab at it was too long, I will focus next time on rewriting the existing verbage on the 25th dynasty and consolidating the new information into a few short sentences.

Dailey78 (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)dailey78

I don't disagree with most of this. A few more points to consider:

• If scholars disagree about which period the 25th dynasty belongs in, that puts us in something of a bind: how do we stay neutral when we have to choose to put it in one section or the other? Maybe we could combine the Third Intermediate and Late Period sections; the resulting section wouldn't be terribly long, although it might seem a little out of balance compared with the limited space given to the three kingdoms. I don't know.

• Egyptologists generally see Napata as a separate civilization from Egypt, although of course closely linked with it and ruling over it for several decades. The Napatan pyramids would not, therefore, count as entirely Egyptian. But the Egyptians did build (much smaller) pyramidal structures after the Middle Kingdom, including one as a royal tomb (Ahmose I). Maybe the article could say that after the Middle Kingdom they ceased to build large-scale pyramids, but the pyramid motif remained important in Egyptian architecture.

• The image of Menkaure is inconveniently long, but Khufu's statue isn't in good shape. I suggest the image at Khafre Enthroned, which is sensibly short. Khafre's building achievements were similarly grand (pyramid nearly as big as his father's, pyramid temple way bigger, plus sphinx). And the statue itself is regarded as a masterpiece of Old Kingdom artwork—the epitome of pharaonic deification and timelessness.

• The architecture section is already a bit cramped, so I wouldn't advise adding another image. The column image shows the massive nature of Egyptian architecture and the Edfu image shows a distinctive Egyptian architectural form, the pylon. Perhaps a better image of the Edfu pylon can be found (see this category), but it is very symmetrical. And—forgive me for being an architectural philistine—to me the temple of Hatshepsut at a distance just looks like several rows of very large slots.

• A very niggling point, but I would prefer not to have two images in the small legacy section. The photo you added has only one tourist, and the camels-by-pyramids one doesn't have many, so it might be preferable to have one image that has more of a sense that sightseers are flocking. This is the best I could find. It's not an especially good shot of the sphinx, but at least it's there. A. Parrot (talk) 04:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think we're in agreement on practically every point, so we shouldn't have to spend much more time on this. I don't think it's worth the trouble to reorganize the intermediate and late period sections. I will leave the 25th dynasty text in its current location, although I may rearrange and tweak the text a little. It will be very short and a couple of sentences max. I will wait a little longer for more discussion first.

• However, I still feel that we are doing a disservice to the Ancient Egypt survey article if we do not include some image of the sphinx. I'm not partial to any particular section. I'm not partial to any particular image. I strongly feel that somewhere in the article we should find space to include an image of the sphinx. Dailey78 (talk) 02:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)dailey78

• Made the pics in the legacy section smaller to address A. Parrot's aesthetic concerns. The smaller pics allow the "Notes" section to regain the full width of the page using Chrome as my browser. This also addresses my concern that the entire Ancient Egypt article does not have a single pic of the sphinx. Hopefully, this is an agreeable compromise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dailey78 (talk • contribs) 03:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I will leave the decision to A. Parrot and Wdford. Do what you think is best. I've said enough. My two cents is that the previous picture of all pyramids at the Giza necropolis was a particularly beautiful pic of the pyramids. I know that it doesn't address the sphinx concern. Whatever you guys come up with, I will not touch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dailey78 (talk • contribs) 22:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Can we get the image of the Giza pyramids reinstated somewhere in the article? This one: . It is easily one of the most beautiful images in the article, and the pyramids are unquestionably the symbol of Ancient Egypt. I appreciate that some people are such enthusiastic advocates for the sphinx, but we have two images of it in the article already, and no image that shows the pyramids in their entirety! This is a featured article about Ancient Egypt, and we have a featured image of the pyramids readily available, so there is absolutely no reason at all why it shouldn't have a very prominent place in the article.--76.121.180.74 (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

No chariots

Both hands are needed to drive a chariot, so they are out of the military.Turtleguy1134 (talk) 02:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Chariots were used in Ancient Egypt's military.--Tærkast (Discuss) 12:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Km.t (Kemet/Khemet)

Shouldn't the most predominant native name for Ancient Egypt be mentioned in the lead? Namely the hieroglyphs km.t, usually transliterated as kemet or khemet?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Mummy

a mummy is a dead body that has been preserved the egyptians believed that a mummy was needed to have an afterlife the egyptians believed that the soul was made up of three parts; the Ka',the Ba ', and the Akh

the ka was an invisible twin that lived inside the body

the ba could leave the body but had to return to it the akh made the journey to the underworld

if any part was destroyed the soul would be destroyed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.54.118 (talk) 17:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

There were numerous recent changes made to this featured article by another editor. Many of them are uncited. Most of them make chauvinistic and unnecessarily biased points. What does everyone think of these changes?Rod (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, if the changes are uncited and present a non-neutral point of view, then they should be removed, possibly with an edit summary stating that these changes should be cited at the very least.--Tærkast (Discuss) 23:28, 11 February 2012 (UTC)