Talk:Ashur-uballit II/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Llywrch (talk · contribs) 13:53, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Starting review. -- llywrch (talk) 13:53, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

llywrch writes

Sorry for the delay in starting my comments; the last few weeks proved busier than I expected.

Starting with the positives, this article is well-organized & covers the topic quite well & in a neutral tone. (I've done a bit of outside research on this personage, & practically everything that is known about him has been included in this article.) With the fact it is a stable article, most of the criteria for a GA is met. In large part my comments here more address the style of the article -- the part of a GA review I hate -- than any substantive concerns.

Thank you for taking the time to look through Ashur-uballit's article! No need to worry about the delay, I've been quite busy the last few weeks as well so it worked in my favor too. Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

First, this would clench GA status were there any illustrations, which will always be a challenge with any article on ancient history. I had a look over at Commons for any possible material, & if any good picks are there they are buried deep in the uncatagorized pile. For example, I figured there must be some usable photo related to Harran -- it's an ancient city, doubtlessly has been the site of at least a few excavations -- but found myself staring at a photo of the countryside near that city, & admitting the landscape featuring a dirt road could easily be of Arizona as anywhere in Syria or Southern Turkey. A map at that point seemed to be a safe bet -- especially since I found myself pressed to remember where Nineveh, Assur & Harran were in northern Mesopotamia -- but map the best choice I could find, while showing all of the relevant cities, omitted geographical features & wasn't that well drawn. So while I'm not going to hold the lack of any illustrations against my approval, if you want to push this article to FA status, I'd strongly suggest creating a map. Moreover, a good one could be re-used in several related articles.

Yes, it is sad that there really isn't much to work with on the image front. We are unlikely to ever get contemporary artwork depicting Ashur-uballit (as we have for some of his predecessors) since his rule was an incredibly chaotic time. Harran (surely there have been excavations, as you say) seems like the kind of place we will get decent images of some day, so that might be a possibility in the future. If I try to get this to FA later I will definitely try to make some kind of map, yes. Ichthyovenator (talk) 07:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm actually recommending you shorten this article, but I am. The section "Rule at Harran and status" gets too caught up in the details of the tablet from Dur-Katlimmu. You don't need to quote the entire document; at most all you need is the last line -- & you could get away without quoting even that. Further, you tell us three times in this section that Ashur-uballit was not crowned king, but was crown prince: delete one of these mentions, & combine the details why this is important in one sentence. That makes the information easier to find, & the article easier to read.

I've tried to rework the section a bit, see if it's better now. As for the Dur-Katlimmu tablet, I've removed the first line but I think keeping the other two in is important for the rest of the text; the second line identifies the ruler of Assyria as a "crown prince" and not "king" and the last line has a lot of things discussed later in the section. I moved the analysis of the Dur-Katlimmu tablet unrelated to Ashur-uballit himself to the last paragraph on the section, I still feel it is useful for showing the socio-political situation in Ashur-uballit's Assyria. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I can understand that you wanted to cite as many works as possible, & there weren't that many available, but I find these two prime candidates for removing:

• Dierk Longe's article. Sorry, any time I see the Donga of Nigeria mentioned in any work that is not an anthropological or sociological study, I immediately think I'm reading the work of a crank. Moreover, his primary topic has nothing to do with Ashur-uballit or Mesopotamian history in general -- he's arguing for his idiosyncratic theory that is not mentioned at all in this article as it stands That you only cite him twice -- once along with another, more reliable source; the second for an uncontroversial fact -- means you can rid yourself of an unhelpful association quite easily. (And if you need a source for that fact, I will help you find a better one.)
• Kemal Yildirim's article. This took me a several tries to actually find the article to read: the first few times I was convinced the link was to the wrong article. It doesn't help that Yildirim decided to upload the entire issue his article appeared in! After finally finding it, I was disappointed to find everything he had to say about Ashur-uballit consisted of a single paragraph, repeating what other sources said; nothing new or insightful. I'd drop this source too.

You've hit the nail on the head here; I tried to use all the sources mentioning Ashur-uballit I could find. I can see that Lange's article is problematic and I agree Yildirim's one is unnecessary. Removed both. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:30, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

On the matter of footnoting, there is something wrong with your links to M.B. Rowton's article: every time I click on "Rowton, 1951", I am taken to the information about Hussein Bassir's article; when I click on "Bassir 2018", I am taken nowhere. I don't use the {{Sfn}} template, so I can't help you fix it.

My mistake! This should be fixed now. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

On to less important comments...

• In the lead the last paragraph starts "Ashur-uballit II rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at Harran" -- I'd include some indication of time, such as "After the loss of these cities, Ashur-uballit II rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at Harran".

Added "After the loss of these cities and the death of Sinsharishkun". Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• The phrase "what little subjects" appears in the section "Rule at Harran and status". I don't think Assyrians were little; so I changed that to "the few subjects", since you obviously meant to refer to little in numbers.

Haha, yes "few" was the intended meaning here. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• The Mannea are described as a leading power. Considering that until I read this article I had never heard of the Mannea -- I wondered if you meant Mitanni -- I wouldn't lump them with Egypt as a major power.

Mannea is correct here, but yes, it would be wrong to refer to them as a leading power on the same level as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and the Medes. I've rephrased so that the "leading power" part only applies to Egypt. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• In "Fate", Ashur-uballit's ultimate end is discussed. We really don't know if he died soon after his unsuccessful siege of Harran, or maybe eked out a life as a brigand somewhere in Syria, or joined the circus. (Maybe not the last.) You cite Rowton as saying Ashur-uballit may have died in 608 BC, but Rowton actually says he might have lived until 606 BC. You get Rowton's general point -- Ashur-uballit disappears from history after his defeat in 609 BC -- but make the mistake of stating it as a certainty because he is not mentioned in the battle of 608, rather than as an inference because neither he nor the Assyrians are mentioned. (The written records are very terse, & it is possible the author might have simply forgotten to include them.) Unless the primary sources state facts clearly, we can't be sure expert deductions are correct. But we can state the fact that Rowton suggests or deduces this.

I've managed to lose access to Rowton's article, I've changed the phrasing a bit, changing "likely died in 608 BC" to "possible died in 608 BC" and noted that he could have lived to 606 BC.

• Ashur-uballit is stated as making his "final stand" at Harran, which is clearly taken from Radner. Radner was not choosing her words carefully here, since Ashur-uballit didn't stand & fight at Harran: when the Babylonian army appeared, he fled. After a lengthy siege (I can't calculate exactly how much time passed between "Winter 610 BC" & "the beginning of 609 BC"), the city fell, so some soldiers must have remained behind. I'd use different words to indicate that the Assyrian Empire came to an end at Harran -- which it definitely did end when Ashut-uballit failed to recapture it in the Summer of 609 BC.

Yeah, you're right. He really didn't do a final stand. I changed it to "Ashur-uballit's rule at Harran composes the final years of the Assyrian Empire", not sure how good that sounds. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

(A digression: why did Ashur-uballit not make a last stand at Harran? Would the ancient Assyrians have seen such an act as heroic -- or foolish? Was the alternative of being a brigand a serious possibility? I know this treads the line of original research, but one has to wonder why he abandoned his claim as a king so quickly: some people would rather die than lose their status as royalty. If you were to take this to FA, done carefully as a discussion of what an ancient Assyrian would consider doing in his place would be appropriate. Done badly, & you might as well argue that Ashur-uballit did invent the first travelling circus & ended his days as a ringmaster.)

The answer, as you may have anticipated, is of course "we don't know". Maybe Ashur-uballit just wasn't cut out for it? To be fair to him, he did try to recapture Harran, so he was obviously interested in retaining power. His father (?) Sinsharishkun is assumed to have died fighting in the defense of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, so final stands were obviously a thing of sorts. Since the king was Ashur's representative on Earth it might have seemed appropriate for him to do everything in his power to save Ashur's realm (Assyria). Ashur-uballit (as crown prince) never became Ashur's representative on Earth so maybe that wouldn't have mattered as much for him. As the sole known living member of the Assyrian royal family at this point in time (as far as I know), maybe it was more important that Ashur-uballit lived to fight another day? Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hope these comments help you polish this diamond in the rough. -- llywrch (talk) 22:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch: That's everything responded to, did my best to address your comments. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ichthyovenator:, I made a few copy-edits, most importantly mentioning Rowton explicitly as suggesting Ashur-uballit may have lived until 606 BC. That was the point I tried to make up above, but I must have Unless you strongly object to the latter (it doesn't matter if you revert my other c/e), I'll pass this as soon as I hear from you. (I may just pass it anyway if you want to take time to discuss that edit.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch: Copy-edits look fine to me! Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)