User talk:Leoboudv/Archive 1

Re: Chronologies

Given that you responded with this account to some comments I left on an anonymous IP adress, am I right in assuming that you are in fact the user with IP adress 24.87.128.182 ? If so, while I appreciate any help I can get on straigtening out these articles, the decision to name that section "Dates and Length of Reign" was quite thought out. "Dates and Reign Length" technically leaves the word "Dates" dangling and not attached with the word "reign." and dangling modifiers are usually confusing. On another note, do you in fact have good access and ability to contribute with german sources? I've got all this english stuff, and it keeps referencing german sources, which would be wonderful to use, but I don't know where to get them or how to read them. Thanatosimii 04:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Egyptology

Hi Fabian. Thanks for your messages, and sorry for my delay. I am not an expert in Ancient Egyptology, but I like the rule about extraordinary claims (such as Osman's) to require extraordinary evidence. Another applicable policy for fringe views/theories is WP:NPOV#Undue weight. Cheers. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Akhenaten

It is completely illogical to chop out Osman while retaining the even battier theories of Velikovsky. There is simply no logic to this. I have had a hard time trying to keep therealmikevee from turning the Yuya and other articles into Osman-centred versions of history, but I see no reason not to mention his theory if other equally idiosyncratic ones are also to be discussed. It is a notable fact about Akhenaten that he has been the centre of speculative theories. That's exactly why the section on speculative theories was created. Paul B 10:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Paul B, Osman has his own speculative ideas but the problem is that even in the crowd of minority ideas concerning Akhenaten. Osman's ideas are completely his own! Other controversial writers David Rohl had some scholarly training when he wrote his book--'A Test of Time' but Osman has no academic training. Rohl and Velikovsky had their own supporters but Osman has none really except Thereamalikee. Have you seen the discussion on Osman which I posted: Thereamalikee has been put on notice by other Wikipedia moderators not to push his POV's on others. By the Way, my Akhenaten post attempts to bring some sense and structure on Yuya's identity and on the Akhenaten article as you requested. Regards, Leoboudv 10:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the discussion. Osman has a least one other Wikipedian follower who had added discussion to the Yuya page and his ideas are well known via TV shows etc. Your version is much more coherent than the earlier one from which Osman was crudely excised, but it still seems odd to me to refer to his theories but attribute them to an unnamed 'writer'. It seems like an almost Horemheb-like attempt to obliterate his name! I'd have thought that Osman is a least as notable as the authors of "Bloodline of the Holy Grail", "Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark" and "The Moses Mystery". Paul B 11:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Well you can put in Osman's name if you wish but please stress that it is merely his own. Leoboudv 11:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments regarding Twosret and Bay, and also your comments about Akhenaton. I agree wholeheartedly about people's comments on this Pharaoh - he attracts almost as many (if not more) kookiness than any other Egyptian topic other than the Great Pyramid and the "real" Exodus. It is a pity that people use him to grind their own axes in this way rather than let this amazing man and his amazing period of the Apogee of the Egyptian New Empire period, stand on its own merits. When I was in Berlin and gazed upon Nefertiti's bust, or even more so when I joined the throng who in awesome reverence stood for an hour in front of the golden face mask of Tutankhamon, I and many others found ourselves moved to tears. Let us free this pharaoh from our projections so that we can understand his period (and perhaps his motivations) independently of our own expectataions, wishes and desires. John D. Croft 02:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Shasu

Hi, and sorry for a delayed response. Actually, Redford is not the only to think that some of the Shasu were among the proto-Israelis. However, IMHO, the view makes no sense: in the Merneptah reliefs, the Israelis are portrayed in the same way as Canaanites, but completely differently from the Shasu. In addition, this opinion seems to be steadily losing popularity. Cheers, Beit Or 22:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Tutankhamun

Hello there:

Actually I haven't been watching the Tutankhamun page for months, as at the time it was in the middle of a flame war over the ethnicity of the pharaoh, which wasn't something I wanted to be a part of and don't have the sufficient resources (or time/patience, in this case) to effectively argue against.

And as for the Narmer/Hor Aha debate, I thought I had come down on the side of Narmer. The real arguments I ended up having with people at the time as I remember were more of the "is the name Menes actually referring to Narmer or to Hor Aha?" I'll have another look in that area and see if things have changed.

As for life in The Beaches (which is on Toronto's waterfront, in the east end of the city) it is pretty good. I think we had our "Indian summer" over this past long weekend, with temperatures creeping up into the low 20s, and sun (we had pretty much nothing but steady rain every weekend last month). As for the political bent, I think most people here still remember the provincial government of Mike Harris and its largely negative effects on living in the city. By the same token, I suspect Bob Rae will have a tough time getting much support in the province for becoming Liberal leader.

I'll be heading to Berlin on a business trip early next month, and am planning on making a visit to the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. Let me know if there is anything you'd like me to look for in terms of supporting pictures I might be able to take for an article or two here.

Cheers from T.O.!

P.S. I just oticed the small change you made to the Pepi II Neferkare article, changing "There are no official contemporary records or inscriptions of Pepi's immediate successors" to "There are few official contemporary records" (changing "no" to "few"). Do you have any references for that assertion? (I am not aware of any and am genuinely curious to know).Captmondo 12:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Jürgen von Beckerath

I was surprised to see your comment about von Beckerath on my talk page, because I honestly haven't thought about him since Thanatosimii's last communication. (I've been busy with other things, & it may be a while before I work on Egyptian Chronology.) Are you concerned that I still consider him a kook? I'll admit that I'm not very familiar with the secondary literature -- which is why I asked Thanatosimii about him, & received a satisfactory answer.

One problem with not being an expert in a given field is that it is often difficult to distinguish between the kooks & the reliable people; the secondary literature is often too vast or difficult of access for an intelligent non-expert to form his own opinion. I had mentioned Rohl as an example in this case because I've read enough of his work to know that he writes with enough authority & enough accuracy that it requires a great deal of care & discernment to see that he is advocating a (if you will) "kook" belief. I didn't mean to besmirch von Beckerath's reputation by the comparison.

Am I understanding your concern correctly?

"Ryholt says/Redford notes" in Kamose article

P.S. Am a bit surprised to hear that Redford says that Kamose's burial was likely a modest affair, given that I thought his burial had never been located. Do you have more info on that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Captmondo (talk • contribs) 14:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

Hello there:

I didn't mean to imply that Ryholt/Redford were "dueling" scholars, so much as that the way things were being phrased in the article made it appear that it was just a collection of scholarly opinions rather than a well-written article that has good "flow", so to speak. Not a huge deal, as getting the citations right is half the battle (as I am finding out of late, working on finding the "missing" citations required for the Thutmose III article I am concentrating on at the moment).

I think ultimately Citizendium is doomed to failure for the same reason why Wikipedia is so successful -- anyone can contribute. Not only does Citizendium seem elitist for the reasons you outline, but to my mind Wikipedia's populist background means that many hands can contribute to make truly substantive works. For example, the IMHO the work done on Ahmose I is arguably a better and much more complete article on this important pharaoh than I have run across in any other reference work I have seen -- I very much doubt that any one professor (or two) would spend as much time and effort as did the group of people who ended up contributing to this article. The other thing I like about Wikimedia is that it is the one project must in keeping with what the founder of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee originally had in mind that the Web ought to be a place where you can not only view Web pages, but amend them with new/better information. That's not to say that Wikipedia doesn't have its flaws (and I for one am an advocate that anyone who edits on Wikipedia ought to go through the bother of registering first), but I and my friends are finding that Wikipedia is becoming as important a Web site destination these days as is a search engine like Google. (Hmm. I should probably write more about this topic on my blog [1] someday. ;-)

Cheers! Captmondo 19:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: Blacklist?

I tried turning the reference into a TinyURL format, but that didn't work either. So I went to the [MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist] page and found that TCC had already put in a request early last month to unblock that same part of xoomer.alice.it. At some point some other part of the "xommer" domain likely ran afoul of Wikipedia with spam links and the like, which got it blacklisted in the first place. Since I am not an admin I can address this directly, but I seconded TCC's motion to lift the ban on Raffaele's material. Unfortunately the white-list page doesn't seem to get a lot of attention by admins, so this may take a while. (Hmm, maybe I should seek nomination for an adminship, something I have been avoiding up until now).

Hattusili III

Hi, in your contribution to Hattusili III you cited "Bryce" [2] but there isn't a citation of the work (or the author's full name). Do you recall the work? Cheers, Cleduc 16:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Amenemhet II

Hello there!

I was just in the middle of fiddling around with the formatting of the prenomen in the Amenemhet II article when I saw your note that you had fixed it already. Just looked at the history and I see what went amiss now, and how you fixed it.

I also wanted to belated say "thank you" for pointing out the information about the new Setnakhte stela discovery. He's not a pharaoh I knew much about previously, and it is always interesting to hear how new discoveries constantly keep re-writing history.

As for your comment about the Fair Use image guidelines, I have to confess that I am stymied on this point as well. Check out the Talk page for the Ahmose I shabti picture to see the long discussio there.

Cheers! Captmondo 21:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Tiye

Dear Keith, You are welcome on Tiye. Just one comment: do you perform and post research work on Wikipedia like Thanatosimi? I notice the Wikipedia article on Thutmose IV is pretty minimal and there are many unattributed information--information which I know is correct but remain unreferenced! IMO, the best book on his reign is Betsy Bryan's 1991 biography "The reign of Thutmose IV" by Johns Hopkins University Press. I was at UBC on Tuesday and missed her book; mostly I researched books on Amenhotep III and Tiye where I made several additions. But since you live in Toronto, you can access more information on him at the University of Toronto. I won't be visiting UBC for many many months and thanatosimi studies in a small US college with a small library. So, only you can reserach--and gives references to the posted information on Thutmose IV by consulting Bryan's book. I bought Grimal's book on Ancient Egypt long ago but he has very little to say on this king--who was certainly an important ruler since he made peace with Mitanni and built a huge obelisk in his nearly 10 year long reign. By the Way, I will try to remember to sign in as you recommend. Leoboudv 00:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey there Leoboudv. Sorry for not responding sooner -- have been busy with a few other projects of late, mainly on Wikimedia.

I signed up to the EFF listserv about a year ago, but I don't always scrupulously read all of the posts (mainly just the digests). Thanks for pointing it out though.

You've done a good job expanding the Amenhotep III article. Time allowing, will give it a copyedit pass this evening. And as for the pics, I may be able to help you out there. I don't know your level of Wiki-knowledge so you may already know about this, but WikiMedia has a number of other illustrations of this (and other pharaohs) that you might want to consider using. The link for the pics relating to Amenhotep III can be found at: [3]. For the category as a whole, see [4]. This is where I have been spending some spare time of late, organzing images for easy retrieval by others later.

Prior to Xmas I made a point of heading to the museum local to me and doing a fairly thorough photo-survey of its Ancient Egyptian galleries. I finished processing the pics last week and posted everything to [5]. Not as impressive as the collections in Berlin or the Louvre, but there are a few things that may be of interest to you.

Business takes me to New York and San Francisco at the end of this month. Between meetings with people am hoping to get to the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan in New York City and the Rosicrucian collection in San Jose, with flash-less camera in hand. Will hopefully be able to fill in some pharaonic gaps while at these places (and if not, likely add to my library at least).

Cheers! Captmondo 13:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I just noticed the reply to me regarding Tiye here on your page rahter than my own talk page. ;-) Though I teach at the U. of T. (definitely not in the Egyptology department I hasten to add) I don't spend much time on campus except when I am actually teaching my course. Work/life gives me plenty of reasons not to head over to the library for doing some idle research. As I have said, I will be in NYC/San Fran area soon, and my next course won't be starting up until March. If I get the chance to head down to the U. of T. to do some research, I will. If you can point me to a particular journal or publication, will see what I can do (and I do have a scanner at home, so I can always send excerpts bia email or Web if necessary).

Cheers again! Captmondo 14:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Amenhotep III

I've done a partial copyedit pass on Amenhotep III, and it needs a more thorough going-over than I can provide at the moment. I have left my suggestions at the bottom of the current discussion page for the article though.

Good work btw! It is well on the way to being a solid article.

Cheers! Captmondo 15:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Sneferu

Sorry for the delay in responding. I took a look at Sneferu, & could find no sign that it had been an article about software. However, I did find Snefru, an article about "a cryptographic hash function" & has a link at the top to the Pharaoh. I see no reason to rename either article. Since it's easy to confuse the two, is this what happened? -- llywrch 20:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Image for Senusret I

I added the image with a caption, per your request. FYI, there is a tutorial on image markup for Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Extended image syntax; this is what I relied to do this. If you specify the name of the image on commons, the MediaWiki engine will automagically import the image from Commons. -- llywrch 19:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Beketaten

Hi,

I looked up Beketaten in the Dodson–Hilton book. It says "Beketaten: Youngest daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye. Depicted with her mother (and once near her father) in the tomb of Huya at Amarna (TA 1.) A statue of the princess is shown being painted in another scene in the tomb." Even though she is nowhere explicitly mentioned as a daughter of Amenhotep III, she is always associated with Tiye, thus most scholars regard her as their child, born shortly before her father's death.

Another theory, mentioned in the Dodson book's Notes section is that Beketaten was born to Akhenaten and Tiye. This theory is based on a scene in Huya's tomb, showing Akhenaten and his children on one side and Amenhotep, Tiye and Beketaten on the other. Here Beketaten is simply mentioned as "King's Daughter Beketaten", while the other princesses' names are being followed with "...born of the King's Great Wife Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti". It gave Aldred the impression that "while the father remains the same, the identity of the mother has to be defined in the case of Nefertiti since she was the junior queen (vis-a-vis Tiye)". (See the pic here.)

I think this theory if a bit far-fetched, mother-son marriages were taboo even to Egyptians (I can't think of a single example of it, and accepting a co-regency would explain that painting better). Could be included in the article, though, but I don't have the Aldred book yet and would like to see the theory in context before I add it to an article.

The theory that she is identical with Nebetah is mentioned in Tyldesley's cited book. I doubt it too, since it seems to be based on the single fact that Nebetah disappeared around the same time when Beketaten appeared, but thought I'd mention this.

– Alensha ^talk 13:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear Fabian:

About Beketaten: I've never seen her mentioned as a daughter of anyone else but Amenhotep III (except for the not-too-likely theory that she was the child of Akhenaten and Tiye). I always took it for granted that she was Amenhotep and Tiye's child. (It's the eldest girl Sitamun about whose parentage there have been doubts – I'll include that in her article which needs complete rewriting anyway.)

About Reeves: Your Amazon review is very good, I think I'll buy that book. His theory about Dahamunzu being Nefertiti is especially interesting.

About the wife of Ramesses IV: her name is Tentopet or Duatentopet according to the Dodson book; I'll write her article. – Alensha ^talk 15:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just seen what you added to the Nebetah article. I don't think it should be stated in the article that Beketaten was Akhenaten's daughter. She is nowhere mentioned as such, and most books I've read mention her as Amenhotep's youngest daughter. It is true that she looks about the same age as Akhenaten's children, but judging one's age based on the pictures and reliefs is not really accurate. Also, even if there was no coregency, Beketaten can be Amenhotep III's daughter and still be the same age as Meritaten etc., since Akhenaten could have had children before his father died (the Hutbenben temple he built in Thebes depicts Nefertiti with her first two children so they were married either quite early in his reign or before his ascension to the throne.)

I've written the Tentopet/Duatentopet article and am rewriting Sitamun's at the moment. Will you please check them? I'm not a native English speaker. – Alensha ^talk 16:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Allen's theory is fascinating! I've seen it briefly mentioned in the Dodson book, but the book did not go into details on Neferneferuaten, only mentioned that "she is probably Meritaten".

It's interesting that Allen also mentions Beketaten and that she could have been Kiya's daughter...

I know about the KV55 mummy being too young to be Akhenaten. What I've always found interesting about this mummy is his close relation to Tutankhamun (based on the serological studies). If they were brothers and we accept that Tut was Akhenaten's son, Smenkhkare must have been Akhenaten's son too. (As a matter of fact, Akhenaten's WP article lists Smenkhkare as his son, probably based on this.) Dodson supports this theory, but most other authors seem to regard Smenkhkare as a son of Amenhotep III.

regards, – Alensha ^talk 22:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Bay, Amenmesse and Seti

You are right in suggesting that an Asiatic influence was strong at this period of time, but that Asiatic influence was present during the whole Rameside period. Rameses I had ancestral estates in the North East Delta. Seti I celebrated the Hysos establishment of the Hyksos kings 400 year celebration of Set (Sutekh), Ramesews II had red hair, and named one of his daughters Bint Anath (Daughter of Anath in Canaanite!). That Seti II had a Canaanite concubine and promoted Asiatics to high positions is hardly surprising. This continued down to the Libyan 21st Dynasty. One of the Judges in the Rameses III conspiracy tiral was a man of Lukka in Anatolia! John D. Croft 16:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Neferirkare

Hi Leoboudv! I took a look at the history of Neferirkare, & I think your problem is that you need to figure out what you want to rename this article to. From the history of that article, you appear to have been trying to move that article to its same name! However, a simpler solution might be to just use a "for template", which you could place at the top of each article. This would allow you to have a headnote on the Neferirkare article that read, "For the better-known fifth dynasty pharaoh, see Neferirkare Kakai"; & the reverse on that Pharaoh's article page. As long as users can find the correct article, I don't think there's any harm doing it this way -- & unless you want to have an article named Neferirkare (Eighth dynasty), it might be the best. -- llywrch 19:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the link! The article on Meketaten is amazing! (I always suspected that the other wall painting, which shows her under a birth canopy, is refering to her rebirth; this theory is in line with that). – Alensha ^talk 18:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: Articles

Dear Fabian,

I'm mostly interested in 18th and 19th dynasty history (especially the Amarna period), hieroglyphs, the everyday life of Ancient Egyptians, the family relations of pharaohs, and the "minor characters in history", about whom one cannot read in every book but without whom history would not be complete (i. e. non-ruling members of royal families; officials; the average Joes Neferhoteps :) of Egypt). These are the subjects most of my WP articles will be about. I'm only an amateur, not an Egyptologist, but plan to study Egyptology in the future. Books and journals are difficult to get here, most of what I have are from amazon.com and Ebay. Some articles can be ordered from libraries online – British Library Direct, www.inist.fr/ or jstor.org. Right now I'm collecting material for articles on various housing types, and these are of great help.

The chronology is an interesting thing, too – I wonder if astronomical events, like solar eclipses can provide a clue? It was briefly mentioned on a mailing list, the archives of which are here.

regards,

– Alensha ^talk 01:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi!

Thanks for telling me about the dispute on metawiki. I've just encountered this problem and didn't know where to complain. It didn't let me update the Ramesses I article on Hungarian Wikipedia because it includes a link to Touregypt.

I've just read your review about the Kitchen book. You have a fantastic knowledge on the TIPE. Are you planning to study Egyptology in the future? regards, – Alensha ^talk 15:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: TE

Hi Leoboudv! I don't know if he'll try to revert the removal; I think that at this point it would be very unwise of him to do it, whether he could justify the action or not. I'll admit that Touregypt may not be the best resource in many cases -- a point Beetstra & others repeatedly raised, & had the links been removed only from the "External links" sections I doubt anyone would have said anything. But the proper solution is to find better sources & replace these cites with, not to blacklist the site! If Touregypt is blocked today, tomorrow someone would follow precedent add Fox News to the list -- & that would be quite the mess!

Please note, that my concern with Betacommand is limited to his behavior -- not to him. Fighting spam & vandalism is a thankless chore that must be done, & using a bot may be the best tool in many cases; however, as KyraVixen pointed out, mistakes happen, & all parties need to recognize this & work together to fix them. Rigidly enforcing one's decision against the opinions of other established users is not the way to do this, & I hope Betacommand learns from this, changes his behavior, & becomes a better member of Wikipedia. -- llywrch 17:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that the replacement for touregypt.net is not an improvement: it fails to include the dates of his reign! Although the information about the dates of his reign could be referenced to Ian Shaw's The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, I notice that there are a few facts that are unique to touregypt: the names of two possible queens, his possible mummy, & a discussion of the succession to his throne (which in Shaw is treated differently enough that I would draw from both sources here). I believe this points to the best approach for this problem: don't just revert -- improve. Yes, we link to an alleged spamsite, but we have to link there because it contains assertions that are likely to be repeated; users of Wikipedia will encounter them, wonder where they came from -- & our careful referencing can help these users learn this. Even if we discover that these assertions are all fabrications, we need to mention at least that touregypt.net says such-and-such, but no other source has been found. And if we have our links blocked for that, then the reasoning can be shown to be wrong. -- llywrch 20:07, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw your nice edit on Unas. I will try to do things--your and Thomas Shaw's way. Here is my second--and final--post for the day on the Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty. [6] I gave a precise reason for TE's inclusion here. Hope this is OK. By the way, I didn't know about this link but someone on the Wikimedia discussion mentioned their distaste at having it removed. I just wished the Egyptian TE writer had given his exact book source on the treaty but the images and text of the treaty is very important. The other URL on the article for this treaty has even shorter coverage of the treaty's text. I also gave some info. from my copy of Nicolas Grimal's book on the reasons for the treaty. Fabian. Leoboudv 22:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Leoboudv, I don't know why I would be angry with you . -- llywrch 17:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Update on TE: Leoboudv, I just had a look at the blacklists on meta & the whitelist here on en.wikipedia, & I didn't find this site blacklisted. Did you double-check the spelling of the URL? (There's a tour-egypt.net & a touregypt.net out there.) If your spelling is correct, then I'm guessing that linking to this website is some momentary glitch due to today's date. Try re-adding the link tomorrow & see if the problem persists. Please let me know what happens. -- llywrch 17:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops, a second look does show that touregypt.net is still on the meta blacklist. An admin made the same mistake I did, & thinking that it had been removed there, removed the whitelisting here. I used my Admin bit to undo that change & left a note over at Meta about this. You ought to be able to link there once again. Just an honest mistake. -- llywrch 21:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Ay

Hello again! Thanks for making the addition to the Ay article for the reference that I thought ought to be there about him having killed Tutankhamun -- while I remember seeing a somewhat sensationalistic Discovery Channel show alluding to the possibility, I didn't think there were serious scholars who believed in it. So what exactly is the motive that Brier gives to the aging Ay to want to kill Tutankhamun in the first place?

Just got back from another business trip, this time from Boston. Visited the Ancient Egyptian galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which is a solid collection, especially of Old Kingdom pieces from in and around Giza. Haven't finished processing everything yet, but you can get a glimpse as to what's there by taking a look at what can be found at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Captmondo/gallery#Museum_of_Fine_Arts.2C_Boston.2C_March_2007.

One thing I found a little bit surprising: there's no article on Wikipedia on Reserve heads, which could now be illustrated. Not sure if this is an area of interest for you, but I thought I would point it out.

Cheers! Captmondo 03:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to say "thank you" for enlightening me on Bob Brier's "Ay murdered Tut" theory. At face value it does seem far-fetched, especially now in the light of new evidence (I have to wonder if Brier has made any subsequent comments to continue to support his theory or not. Might be worth checking for.)

I checked out Citizendium. Looks good, but for now will continue to throw my lot in with Wikipedia. Despite the vandals and the nuts, on the whole the egalitarian ideas behind Wikipedia. We'll see how things pan out. Was not impressed with their article on Khufu, which concluded with pretty dubious claim.

The image you've added to the Mentuhotep III article looks good. Would look better if it was in a pharaoh infobox (hint, hint ;-) What I found interesting about that statue was how similar it looked in terms of style to that of Ahmose I, whose statues apparently copied the style of the Middle Kingdom Metuhoteps.

Have more work to do on uploading fresh photos from my visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and have just finished uploading another batch to the same place on my gallery page (same link as in previous posting.)

Cheers! Captmondo 21:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like you've found an interesting new book on Ancient Egyptian chronology. And at that price, it's not likely to find a spot on my personal bookshelf (it's about twice the maximum I have so far paid for a book on the topic in general).

Have just checked my copy of The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, and you are right about the relative incompleteness as to what's known of the Mentuhoteps in general (and specifically with Metuhotep III). Still, there are other very minimal pharaoh infoboxes out there already, such as those for a number of early Old Kingdom pharaohs -- one of the nice things about the design of the infobox in this case is that there is room to expand should more info turn up.

You've also pointed out one of the chief advantages of Wikipedia (or Citizendium for that matter), that the info has the potential to be much more current than print can ever hope to be. I just finished taking a stab at an article for Reserve heads, and noted in one of the publications that I have that very few examples of the sides or backs of the heads have ever been published. I took several shots of the heads I saw in Boston in profile (particularly those that has interesting details, such as deliberate gouges or plasterwork) and now they are on Wikimedia. (Had I read the article first prior to my visit, I would have made a point of photographing the back of the heads as well. Oh well. ;-)

Cheers once again! Captmondo 03:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)