Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 8 October 2022 [1].


Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun edit

Nominator(s): A. Parrot (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The most famous discovery in the history of Egyptology. This is a story of how archaeology can shape and be shaped by nationalism, fads, and pop culture. The spectacular treasures and the purported curse on the tomb are well known to Western audiences. Recent scholarly sources tend to emphasize the political dispute surrounding the discovery and to treat the actions of the excavators as examples of colonialist attitudes in Egyptology. I hope I have treated all these topics in a neutral and proportional way. User:Ceoil has given this article a peer review and believes it is ready for FAC.

There are ambiguities in the copyright status of some of the images, which I detail on the talk page here. Several of the photos I'm uncertain about will definitely fall into the public domain in January, if they haven't already. I leave final verdicts up to the judgment of image reviewers.

Minor points: I've tried to write in British English, but some Americanisms have probably crept in. Also, in the reflist, the Duckworth reprints of Howard Carter's three-volume book about the tomb are not arranged by year of publication. For some reason Duckworth reprinted Volume III before Volume II, and Volume II before Volume I. I chose to put them in the most intuitive order, the one in which they were originally published. A. Parrot (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary comments by Johnbod edit

On a quick look, there are lots of big white gaps, and a monochrome look overall. We have hundreds of photos of the contents on Commons, many quite decent. The ones from the Paris exhibition of 2019 look especially good (the photos in the main article on the tomb could probably be perked up too). I'll take a proper look later, & if that's ok will deal with any minor engvar issues I spot. Johnbod (talk) 05:08, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Butting in, like many of us I suppose, I devoured this story when I was a kid and might recuse to review if I have time... No objections to colour images of the contents but as this is about the discovery of the tomb, I'd tend to keep the contemporary black-and-white pics and simply augment with modern colour shots where there's space -- this might be just what Johnbod's suggesting anyway... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:50, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, pretty much - I don't like gaps when there is no shortage of good images. Johnbod (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some images in the gaps. A. Parrot (talk) 03:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Better, for sure. Johnbod (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, my idea was to focus on images of the process itself. Many more are available from the later phases of the clearance, and I hope to add some next year, once they have unambiguously fallen into the public domain. (The images that I used that fall into this category were already present on Commons; when uploading new images to illustrate the article, I only used those whose copyright status I could verify myself.) But I wouldn't object to adding some current images of objects that are mentioned in the text. A. Parrot (talk) 14:04, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support edit

The article is very comprehensive and well written. It is well researched with appropriate sources. Thank you for your hard work, it really shows! Merytat3n (talk) 21:52, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Iazyges edit

Will take this up. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 20:40, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • so that alone among the tombs in the valley it retained most of the goods it was stocked with. the placement of "alone" here is somewhat awkward, perhaps so that, unlike the other tombs of the valley, it retained most of the goods it was stocked with.
Changed.
  • The digging resumed after 3 November perhaps I am misreading this, but it appears to say that they discovered the steps on the 4th, Carnavon was told of such, and traveled from England to Egypt and arrived the day before they discovered it? Is this perhaps meant to be the 13th or 23rd? I cannot access the source for this.
Yes, it was the 23rd. This was an editing typo, now corrected. A. Parrot (talk) 17:18, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support edit

As mentioned by the nominator, took a close look at this at PR, and my quibbles were met then. Another superbly researched and engagingly written article by A. Parrot. No hesitations from me here. Ceoil (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support, subject to these few copyedits. An excellent article. John (talk) 10:41, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review (pass) edit

This isn't an FA requirement, surely? Johnbod (talk) 03:12, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In any case, I have added some. A. Parrot (talk) 02:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Aoba47: The photo was transferred to Commons from Wikipedia in 2007, and at that time the source link pointed back to the Wikipedia copy (as seen here). Somebody apparently deleted the more specific link because it was recursive. The original link could be added back, but I don't know what to do to trace the image any further than that. Oddly enough, it seems to be one of the better copies of this photo circulating online, so finding a replacement from a different source may not be feasible. A. Parrot (talk) 02:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the clarification. It should be fine as it currently stands though as the image has been up for several years without any issues. Aoba47 (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have added links to archived versions, though I don't know if there's some other way I'm supposed to format them. A. Parrot (talk) 02:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the response. The current formatting looks good to me. Aoba47 (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this image review is helpful. Once everything has been addressed, I will be more than happy to pass this review. Aoba47 (talk) 00:09, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • This passes my image review. Best of luck with the nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 02:51, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review edit

  • It's optional to add page numbers to chapters cited; you don't do it for Haikal (2003) but you give page numbers for all the other cited chapters, e.g Dorn (2016) and Goelet (2016), so I would suggest adding the page numbers for Haikal for consistency.
    @Mike Christie: Done.
  • The retrieval date for the Griffith institute cite is "Retrieved 2022-03-05"; should be "5 March 2022" to match the format used for Alberge (2022).
    Fixed.
  • Is White (2003) a chapter or just a reprinted excerpt? Either way, as far as I can tell this was originally published both in McCall's and in Pearson's at the same time. This is a link to the McCall's article. You might consider citing this directly, unless there's value in citing it as you do now because those authors confer authority on the citation.
    White is a reprinted excerpt, but I didn't know how else to format it. It looks like the version in McCall's is abridged; it's missing a lot of the text found in Carter & Mace 2003 (and which was presumably all present in the original Pearson's printing). I'd prefer to stick with the complete text. A. Parrot (talk) 23:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:30, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's everything I can find. Source are reliable and links all work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:41, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fixes look good; pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:30, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.