Talk:Eleutheropolis

Unify the 5 (!?!) articles dealing with the same site

Enough with this overpoliticised BS! One site is one site. Bayt Jibrin is history, no reason to make it the "main article". This "my lobby is stronger than yours" BS is on kindergarten level.
These 5 articles should be ONE:
-Bayt Jibrin
-Beit Guvrin National Park, actually Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park
-Eleutheropolis
-Kibbutz Beit Guvrin, Israel
-Maresha
Arminden (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2015 (UTC)Arminden

Hi @Arminden: I am a fan of consolidating overlapping articles where possible, as I think it leads to better quality articles. Having said that, to my mind there are a few clearly separate topics here:

• The modern kibbutz which is not co-located with any of other other sites here
• The modern national park, with 3,500 caves designated as a World Heritage Site (map here https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1370/maps/)
• The two individual historical built-up sites within the national park: (1) Tel Maresha and (2) Bayt Jibrin / Eleutheropolis.

So I don't see how we can reasonably get it down below 4 articles.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:30, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm hardly active at the moment, so I won't reread it all to remember what does indeed overlap, but from what I know, I don't see why all except probably the kibbutz shouldn't be on one main page together. The reason why the national park covers both Tel Maresha and Beit Guvrin seems to me good enough for Wiki, too. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 01:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Map illustrating the locations of Kibbutz Beit Guvrin, historical Bayt Jibrin-Eleutheropolis, the ancient caves World Heritage Site, and Tel Maresha (1940s Survey of Palestine map with modern overlay)

Hi @Arminden: I have looked into this further. The reason why the national park covers this area does not relate to the sites of Tel Maresha and Bayt Jibrin / Eleutheropolis. It is only because of the caves. See the explicit statement in the Israeli submission to UNESCO: The Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin, In the Judean Lowlands, As a Microcosm of the Land of the Caves, Submitted to the World Heritage Center - UNESCO By the State of Israel - January 2013, p.14: "Note: The relationship between the caves and the settlement network above them – wherever it is referred to all through this dossier – is given in order to let the reader understand the context of these caves; however, the mentioned archaeological surface remains are not a part of the proposed nomination!"

The same document includes photocopies of the separate articles in the The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land for Tel Maresha (PDF pages 115-132) and Bayt Jibrin / Eleutheropolis (PDF pages 133-143).

I have annotated the map on the right to help illustrate.

Since we are at least partly agreed, I propose to get on with combining Eleutheropolis with Bayt Jibrin; we can continue the discussion with respect to the other articles in parallel. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The Bayt Jibrin/Beit Guvrin article's "History" section starts with a subsection on Iron Age Maresha. It ends with "In 40 BCE, the Parthians devastated completely the "strong city" [of Maresha/Marisa], after which it was never rebuilt. After this date, nearby Beit Guvrin succeeded Maresha as the chief center of the area." (Unsourced here for now, true, but it's the common interpretation). So either it's one topic, as the articles now suggest, or it's not, and then we need to modify what we have. It's a very compact area, to me it looks like one settlement area with different focal points in different periods. The UNESCO application tells me nothing. All of Palestine knows the phenomenon of rooms, many of which were built as part of houses, hewn out of the limestone or chalk rock. They are part and parcel of the settlements. (The tombs and some agricultural-use caves outside the built-up areas are also part of the settlements). The Heritage list accepts single elements, like the Roman siege system at Masada by exclusion of the Masada fortress itself, but that is completely irrelevant to us here. Arminden (talk) 09:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Clearly there is some much needed clean up, but from what I can see, Once has the best measure of things. Bayt Jibrin/Beit Guvrin appears to be the same entity as Eleutheropolis while Maresha, as noted in the Survey of Palestine lies two miles (or "two milestones" as Eusebius of Caesarea places it) to the south. These are clearly neighbouring but not identical locales with distinct histories. The Maresha material in the Bajt Jibrin history section should simply be removed/reduced/clarified. The modern national park and kibbutz are equally their own distinct objects. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:01, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that Eusebius had described them both in one place, thank you. I agree it would be good to trim the Maresha part of the Bayt Jibrin article.

I find the single element part of the UNESCO application interesting - presumably there is some incentive to be focused. It seems odd to me; the last article I wrote on a UNESCO site was Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae - in that situation the Egyptians appear to have done the opposite, sneaking in a few sites which were neither Nubian nor between Abu Simbel and Philae.

Onceinawhile (talk) 16:32, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Deleted external links

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Greek name

There are two separate spellings? or shouldn't Ελευθερούπολις be the Greek form, losing the upsilon when it's latinized? — LlywelynII 21:21, 21 May 2022 (UTC)