Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George E. Mylonas/archive1

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George E. Mylonas

George E. Mylonas (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 25 May 2024, 20:03 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:20, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another archaeological biography, I'm afraid -- in lots of ways a sequel to the recently-promoted Alan Wace, as another of the major excavators of Mycenae. Mylonas was born to privilege in Smyrna, and had his studies in Athens interrupted by war: he witnessed the burning of his home town and was almost killed as a prisoner of war. He was the most prominent of the many Ionian refugees "adopted" by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and spent most of his career working in the United States and excavating in Greece. He is best known for his work on Grave Circle B at Mycenae, which provided a valuable counterweight to the older and far more rushed excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Grave Circle A, and for his lovely appearance in Michael Wood's documentary on the Trojan War, in which he talks about visiting the citadel of Mycenae at night to talk to King Agamemnon. The article was reviewed at GA by Cplakidas: I have done my best to write it in American English, in keeping with Mylonas's lifelong association with American archaeology. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:20, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Serial

  • Curiously, archaeology isn't linked outside the IB? (I think—or have I missed something so obvious!)
    • It wasn't; perhaps overlinking, but now linked on first mention (of "archaeologist") in lead and body. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who profiled him in 58? As in, an official capacity, year book, reference etc?
    • A local magazine in St. Louis: they themselves are pretty unimportant, except that they interviewed Mylonas and he shared this detail with them. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mylonas attended Smyrna's Evangelical School, considered the most important Greek school in the city, until 1915". He attended until 1915, or it was only considered important up until then?
    • Given the comma before until, I think the only grammatically valid reading is the first, isn't it? UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per WP:INTERWIKI, the link looks odd; I've never seen that in running prose before. But maybe just my loss.
    • I'm not sure which one you mean: do you mean the interlanguage link to Greek Wikipedia? Those are pretty standard where a page exists only in another language (but might later be created in English). UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "later an archaeologist ... by the archaeologist", can this be tweaked.
  • "once again handed him to the Turks". There's no mention so far of the crew having already handed him over (or anyone else doing so, I think). Would "immediately handed him over" express it better?
  • "former teachers at the International College". Can they be named?
    • Not by the sources I have, unfortunately. I doubt any of them were particularly notable by Wikipedia's standards, as secondary-school teachers. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "construction ... conducted". Perhaps "under the aegis of" or "overseen by".
    • No objection, but I'm also not sure what problem is being solved here: do you think the alliteration is harmful? UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • [Glad he got to see his Festschrift, at least]
  • Any more dates available for his children?
    • I've added the birth dates for the named daughters (Eunice not from a great source, but I think it's good enough for the purpose). Will see if I can find one for Alexander. and now for Alexander as well. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and taught at the same institution". This is slightly abrupt. From when? It's not automatic, of course, that he only would have started teaching on receiving his doctorate; I would expect from earlier. Any ideas?
    • Now "took a teaching post" -- not got the sources to be much more precise, unfortunately. Looking back at the source, it's even less precise; simply has "where he taught". I've gone for Mylonas taught at the University of Athens, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1927. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "to which he gave its modern name". Wot had it previously been called?
    • We don't know what its ancient name was, but it's worth being clear, I think, that "Cult Center" is only really an educated guess as to what the building is/was. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:47, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great article, I learned much. Cheers! ——Serial Number 54129 14:19, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Media review (LunaEclipse)

  • Infobox image is fair use and has a solid rationale.
  • Second image is PD, so that passes too.
  • Grave Circle B image is not a copyvio, so it gets a pass.
  • Image of his grave is also freely licensed, so it also gets a pass.
  • "Eleusis Amphora" image is also freely licensed.

Support on media. Good job! 🌙Eclipse (talk) (contribs) 01:41, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you: much appreciated. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review (Generalissima)

  • Lede is uncited besides the O.S. footnote, and I don't see any claims here that need citations. Good for LEDECITE.
  • Everything in all body sections is cited, as are both footnotes. I don't see any potentially controversial claims that are uncited.
  • Getting to the meat of this, the citation sections are well formatted. The section and subsection headings here are clearly labeled.
  • Works cited are in alphabetical order, looks good here.
  • Everything that has pages has page numbers.
  • I won't go into detail on all the modern academic sourcing, but will look over things that seem weird at first glance.
    • Dr. Vogeikoff-Brogan's From the Archivist's Notebook is a blog, but she is a subject matter expert and so it works for these purposes.
    • Mylonas' cites go into the Selected Works section instead of the Works Cited. Huh. I have never seen this done before, but it's not against the rules and you did on Wace so thank you for the idea! This is really interesting.
    • Very old sources like MacLachlan, Luce, and Capps are used sparingly for biographical details and never as far as I can tell for anything controversial; when they give subjective opinions, they're attributed. Seems good to go on that front.
    • In Search of the Trojan War is used correctly to establish he was interviewed for this. It's cited correctly for video works.
  • Sources are consistently formatted. All books that existed at a time where ISBNs were commonplace have them, and older ones have OCLCs. Journal articles have DOIs, and ISSNs, and JSTOR numbers when applicable, as do the sparing books where the same is available. Good job here, this is hard to get right.
  • Overall, I don't see any source problems. I don't think a spot check is necessary here, but I can of course do one if you would so request. Support on source review. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:12, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for doing this -- you have anticipated just about everything I thought I might have to explain! Greatly appreciate your time and diligence on the review. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:13, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Tim riley

  • I infer from a first canter-through for typos etc that American spelling is intended, rather than the English spelling you have used in previous articles. Fine if so, particularly given his ties with the US, but the red links point to Cult Centre (Mycenae) with the English spelling and capital letters, and if that's going to be the article's title it should be so spelled here.
    • Slightly grudgingly, I think the best approach here is to change the target of the redlink to "Cult Center", treating that as a proper noun: I've done so. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The King's English has crept in at "cultural centre and medical clinic".
  • You might be consistent with dates: we have, e.g., " February 28 [O.S. February 15] was followed by 1 March". "July 1" but "3 July".
  • His name is treated rather inconsistently in the lead and info-box: in the opening sentence "George Emmanuel Mylonas (Greek: Γεώργιος Μυλωνάς, romanized: Georgios Mylonas" his middle name vanishes after one mention, and in the info-box his romanised name has a middle initial but his Greek one hasn't, which looks odd.
    • This is largely on the advice of User:Cplakidas, to whom I defer on most things modern Greek. The "Emmanuel" is a patronymic, rather than a middle name in the Anglo-American sense, and most Greeks wouldn't routinely use it unless differentiating him from another George Mylonas (which admittedly isn't a particularly unusual name). However, he consistently published as "George E. Mylonas" in English, so I've treated it is a stronger part of his English name than it was of his Greek one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pronunciation: I know nothing of modern Greek, but am I correct to infer from the omega in his surname that he is pronounced with a long "o"? I'm not sure, come to that, how to pronounce the first vowel in his surname. Upsilons and English don't mix well, I find. Is he "My-loan-ass?" A phonetic guide in the lead would be helpful.
    • Will work on this: I should be able to hash out the IPA with a bit of thought and research. I think "Mee-loan-ass" is closest. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've given it a go. I'm hoping that someone who actually knows what they're doing with IPA will cast a look over it at some point and fix any mistakes. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • L2 Modern Greek speaker here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. The stress is always on the syllable with the accent (τόνος). In Μυλωνάς, it is in the final syllable, not the first, so it would be closer to mee-loh-NAS. Additionally, while YOR-yoss is close to the correct pronunciation of the diminutive form Γιώργος (actually YOR-goss but this is irrelevant), the full form Γεώργιος is actually something like ye-OR-yi-os. Emma Lexi Triphora (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          Adjusted in line with that. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More after I've perused properly. Tim riley talk 08:02, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Second and concluding batch
  • "He was in Smyrna when the city was destroyed by the Turks in September 1922, where he delivered a Christian sermon" – the where being Smyrna but Smyrna is separated from its where by a when and the structure of the sentence seems strange
    • Slightly reworked to He was present at the destruction of Smyrna by the Turks in September 1922, and delivered a Christian sermon in Greek on the morning on Sunday, , for refugees who had sheltered in the chapel of the International College.
  • "he worked as the ASCSA's first bursar on a part-time basis" – mildly ambiguous: perhaps move the "part-time" element to immediately after "worked"?
  • "On his return, he directed the excavations" – on his return to where? Greece in general or somewhere more specifically mentioned earlier?
  • "directed the excavations ...under the auspices of the Archaeological Service,[24] which began in 1930 and continued in 1931" – that would be the excavations that began in 1930 and not the Service?
  • "Robinson had previously tried to manoeuvre another of his students –isn't that a BrE spelling rather than an AmE one?
  • "During the Second World War" – if we're in AmE I think the war is normally referred to as World War II in American usage.
  • "a state of affairs which persisted until 1952" – slightly pejorative overtones to "persisted"? Perhaps something more neutral such as "continued"?
    • I mean, the proximate cause was a civil war, and I don't think it's too much of a NPoV violation to say that those things are bad, but point taken: changed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which commenced on 3 July" – a quotation from a Noël Coward character: "I just can’t abide the word testicles. It's smug and refined like 'commence' and 'serviette' and 'haemorrhoids'. When in doubt always turn to the good old Anglo-Saxon words. If you have piles, say so!" And this is the current edition (2015) of Fowler: "It is a sound rule to use begin in all ordinary contexts unless start is customary (the engine started straight away; he starts work at 9 a.m.; the game started on time). Commence has more formal associations with law (to commence an action) and procedures, combat (hostilities commenced on 4 August), divine service, and ceremonial ... As a general rule it should be reserved for such contexts."
    • Changed to "begun" -- agreed it's rarely a good idea to use a great big word to do the job of a small, everyday one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He served on the council of the Archaeological Society of Athens, a learned society with a prominent role in the excavation and conservation of archaeological heritage, between 1969 and 1971" – I think perhaps the sentence would flow more smoothly and avoid a nanosecond's ambiguity if you moved "between 1969 and 1971" to the start of the sentence. Or you might possibly prune it on the lines of "He served the Archaeological Society of Athens – a learned society with a prominent role in the excavation and conservation of archaeological heritage – as a council member from 1969 to 1971, vice president from 1978 to 1979, and secretary general from 1979 until 1986".
  • "he was formal and aloof in his manners, preferring to address fellow excavation staff by their surnames and as "Mr." or "Miss." – does the source use the word "aloof"? Perhaps it's my advanced age, but I see nothing aloof in not using forenames as a matter of course.
    • Will check the source: Ellingson certainly found it unusual and frosty, but I'll dig out the exact wording she used. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Kaiser (the book author) adds She seems to have found them [George and Lena Mylonas] rather aloof after the quotation, so I think we're good here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mylonas had a son, Alexander, shortly after his marriage to Lena" – I think this would be rather preferable as "Mylonas and Lena had a son, Alexander, shortly after their marriage"
  • "has been called the first publication..." – called by whom?
    • I think it's Panagiotopoulos (the source), but will check. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • It was: clarified. We could just go with "it was...", but my feeling is that the description is hazy enough to have at least one foot in opinion rather than fact, so ought to be attributed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "known as the Mycenaean Melanthron" – I really think you might give us an explanation of "melanthron"
    • Linked to Wiktionray (it's Greek). Also corrected the spelling. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Even with the corrected spelling I can't find it in Liddell and Scott, but I am happy to accept it's OK modern Greek. No further questions, me lud. Tim riley talk 17:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 1955, he was made a Commander of the Order of George I by King Paul of Greece; he also became a Grand Commander of the Royal Order of the Phoenix" – also in 1955?
  • "Selected works" – we had an exchange about this header in the FAC for Alan Wace. I still think "selected works" signals a lack of the comprehensiveness required for FA.

Nothing earth-shaking there, I think. Over to you. Tim riley talk 10:27, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good. The few remaining minor points are neither here nor there (though pray tidy as and when you can) and I am happy to add my support for this admirable article, which seems to me to meet all the FA criteria. Tim riley talk 17:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks as ever, Tim -- I think that's all the rest addressed now. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. Splendid stuff, and full marks for the pronunciation guide in particular. Let me add that I admire your skill in distilling your articles for your leads, something I hate doing and am bad it. Brava! I look forward to seeing the article on our front page. Tim riley talk 20:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Matarisvan

Hi UC, some minor comments from me.

  • Is the Aspropotamos in the lead the one in Trikala or Evrytania? There are pages for both on here.
  • Consider changing "His excavations helped to establish..." to "His excavations helped establish..."?
  • Is the Aghios Kosmas you mention the same as Agios Kosmas? The latter doesn't fall in either of ancient or modern day Attica.
  • You have linked to the Greek Archaeological Service in the lead, would you consider linking in the body?
  • Would Washington University in Saint Louis require a 'the' prefix?
  • Consider linking to Greek Macedonia?
  • Consider rewording "his work in the Western Cemetery uncovered the Eleusis Amphora, considered among the finest examples of proto-Attic art, in 1954" to "his work in the Western Cemetery uncovered the Eleusis Amphora in 1954, considered among the finest examples of proto-Attic art"? The latter is way easier to read. The former is confusing and it might convey that the Amphora was considered among the finest examples in 1954, and not that it was excavated in 1954.
  • Consider changing "surrounded" to "surrounding"?
  • Consider changing "He also served as chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Acropolis Monuments, a pressure group which aimed to raise official awareness of the threat from air pollution to the monuments of the Acropolis of Athens, between 1978 and 1986.[59] He died in Athens, two weeks after suffering a heart attack at his home, on April 15, 1988" to "He also served as chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Acropolis Monuments between 1978 and 1986, a pressure group which aimed to raise official awareness of the threat from air pollution to the monuments of the Acropolis of Athens. He died in Athens on April 15, 1988, two weeks after suffering a heart attack at his home"?
  • Consider adding the NYT and WU obituaries to the biliography? They've been used quite a few times. Also suggest adding the URL access level for the NYT link, for me at least the website asks for a registration.
  • Could we add a YouTube link for the Wood documentary cited? Here is the link I found for the episode in the citation: [1]
  • Consider linking to Nancy de Grummomd, Casey Dué, Robert D. Lamberton and Paul MacKendrick in the biblio, as done for other authors?

That's all from me. Cheers! Matarisvan (talk) 16:03, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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