Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ancient Egyptian deities/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 GrahamColm 10:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Ancient Egyptian deities

Featured article candidates/Ancient Egyptian deities/archive1

Nominator(s): A. Parrot (talk) 22:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A mind-bogglingly complicated group of beings. Egyptologists have devoted intense effort to understanding the Egyptians' surreal and subtle beliefs about their gods. This article is sourced entirely to the work of those professionals, and I believe it conveys their insights about as well as an article of this length can do. A. Parrot (talk) 22:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK, sources and authors provided. GermanJoe (talk) 07:36, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I read through it and found it be articulately written, sourced and a fascinating read. I remember learning about Ancient Egypt in school and the religious beliefs were just made to sound obscure, I don't think the teachers knew anything about it. This, however, is a gentle introduction to the topic which offers an easy to understand overview of the topic. --Andrew 20:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I peer reviewed the article and (most unusually) found nothing to quibble at. I know a little about the topic and I am struck by how well the nominator has compressed and organised an unwieldy and sometimes seemingly self-contradictory series of beliefs into a cohesive and comprehensible whole. I don't see how an article of this title could be better done than this. It clearly meets all the FA criteria in my view. – Tim riley (talk) 07:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support with some comments. I agree with both reviews above, & this is clearly at FA standard already. Beyond that:

As most people mainly encounter the subject via museum visits, I'd like to see a little more relating the article to what they are likely to encounter there. Based on my limited understanding of the topic, I'd like to see the following points worked in (where correct):

no discussion of the uses of small figurines. The very brief mention of popular prayer could be expanded on, with examples.

I expanded the information about prayer a little, and I included mention of the figurines of gods that were given as offerings. I don't know where else you might want to mention figurines. Part of the problem with the "worship" section is that worship of the gods encompasses most of ancient Egyptian religious practice, and I don't want this article to feel like a repetition of ancient Egyptian religion itself. There really should be a popular religion in ancient Egypt article to cover the unofficial side of the religion in depth, but it probably won't exist until I write it, which will not be soon. A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

not mentioned that the main cult images in temples were very small, and none are known to survive.

There are several artifacts from various eras that may have been cult statues (like this, this, this (Silver Horus 2nd screen, and the crocodile statuette in this article), but none are known for certain to have been cult statues. Maybe I can put that in a note.

My sources list some sizes of particular cult statue candidates (and the dimensions of the shrines that would have held cult statues, in Teeter's case) but they don't specify a range of sizes. All the dimensions Teeter lists are less than 1.5 meters, although I know of at least one set of shrines whose statues may have been well over life size. I might say the statues were "generally less than life size", but would that veer over the original research line? A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think so. Johnbod (talk) 12:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The very large statues of deities always (?) in fact represented the pharoah as the deity.

One of my sources says statues of gods were given the same facial features as statues of the reigning king. It doesn't say anything about the ideology behind that convention, although the connection between divinity and kingship is obviously involved somehow. I lean against including that fact unless I can say what it means. A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, Stevenson Smith, revised Simpson, says this somewhere I think, but you can never find anything again in that book. Johnbod (talk) 12:12, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more on Egyptian deities in the wider Roman Empire, especially Isis, would be good. That Isis had a temple in London is worth mentioning. There should be an illustration of a Graeco-Roman style deity (my own favourite is this Jupiter Ammon, but an Isis might be better). The Egyptian pantheon never entirely escaped their homeland in the way Buddhism & later world religions did, but as with their Hindu equivalents their spread is an important aspect of them that it is easy to underplay, encouraged by the way modern academic specialization works.

I added a little more about Isis & co., and about Thoth, who went his own strange way outside Egypt. Because of the academic specialization you mention, I'd have to add other sources to the list to say much more. But the Isis article itself is my next project, so Wikipedia's coverage of the Egyptian gods outside Egypt should improve soon (assuming I finish rewriting the article before all its complications drive me mad). As for an image, I lean toward the Jupiter-Ammon, because it helps to show that it wasn't all about Isis and Serapis, and because the best Greco-Roman images of Isis on Commons are full-length statues that would dangle past the article's end. A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great. Maybe you can come back after Isis & add a little more. Johnbod (talk) 12:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some more specific information, and dates, on the decline of worship in the Christian period, as for example at Navigium Isidis.

See my responses to Casliber below. A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod (talk) 14:06, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: looks very good and prosewise I couldn't find anything to tweak. Agree with Johnbod about mention of Egyptian deities in Roman Empire, and of their decline in Christian period. Not sure how we can discuss aspects of what one sees in a museum though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:25, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just had in mind a bit more on the typical physical aspects & usage of images of the gods. Johnbod (talk) 21:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I think what Johnbod means is that if this article can give a bit more information on the types of artwork that depicted gods, then it can be more useful background for the artifacts depicting gods that people will see in museums (the main place they're likely to see Egyptian artifacts), even if this article isn't about museum-going or Egyptian artwork per se. (catches breath) I'm working on addressing his comments right now.

But dates for the decline of Egyptian religion, beyond what's already given in the article, are difficult to pin down partly because the scholarship is in flux. Theodosius' anti-pagan decrees can be dated, but scholars now believe they had little practical effect, at least on Egypt. Different temple cults ceased to function at different times, depending on when their money ran out or when they caught the ire of the fanatical anti-pagan monks who raised riots and attacked temples. Philae is generally agreed to have been the last place to have a functioning temple cult, but whereas its end was traditionally dated to the 530s based on a passage in Procopius, a 2008 book has challenged that date and moved the cult's end back by 80 years. This argument is definitely changing the debate (e.g., it's accepted by the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology article on Philae), but whether it's universally accepted, I don't know. Plus, temples were probably venerated for decades after their cults ceased, and fragmentary practices in private and household religion continued even longer. (I have access to a scholarly paper that points out a magical spell invoking Isis and Horus in the eighth century, and I don't know whether that's the last known invocation of an Egyptian deity.) And adding those details to this article would mean bringing in other sources solely for that purpose. So I'm not sure what to do about that; suggestions would be appreciated. A. Parrot (talk) 22:34, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok - I think maybe a sentence added that dating the decline is unclear would be good - adding a note on philae is good and the example you give of the 8th C magical spell is fascinating. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a couple of sentences and a note to the article, trying to say compactly what I just said here. See what you think. A. Parrot (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, very happy with that. I think it helps close/conclude the article nicely. Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Me too Johnbod (talk) 12:14, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Colm (talk) 18:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.