Talk:Alodia

Some Confusion

     The sentence, "His rule was initially dated to 999–1015; but, based on paleographical grounds, it is now dated more broadly, to the 9th or 10th centuries." Leads me to suspect that, throughout, you are doing what way too many people do: down-shifting your century counts. I.e., calling the 900s the ninth century, when it is the tenth century; and calling the 1000s the tenth century, when it should rightly be called the 11th century. Either that or the paleography shifted everything a century back in time. The article is extensive, and you HAVE done a lot of research. (Now if only someone could do the same for the other two (2) Christian kingdoms of Medieval Nubia. But this confusion of centuries Must be cleaned up. Or straightened out. For every historical piece in the 'pedia.
     But thank you for what you have done.

Getting this entry going for "Good article"-status

I have now spent over a half year working on this entry, putting a lot of time in researching, reading and writing. I think now it has reached a status where it can get nominated as a "Good article". This is why I initiated a "Peer review", and I would like to ask people to check my entry to see if it is ripe to be honoured with that status. Thank you very much, LeGabrie (talk) 15:25, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Clarification needed

In the section Foreign trade we have this sentence: "The contacts with the The extend of the trading relations with Christian Ethiopia are uncertain." Can anyone clear up what is intended? Perhaps @LeGabrie: can explain? Jodosma (talk) 18:06, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jodosma: Brainfart from my side. Now corrected by deleting "The contacts with the". LeGabrie (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@LeGabrie: Looks OK but don't you mean extent instead of extend? Jodosma (talk) 18:31, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jodosma: Jup, that's what I meant. Feel free to let me know if you spot further grammar mistakes or if you have content questions!LeGabrie (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Alodia/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 21:29, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Criteria

Good Article Status - Review Criteria

Further information: WP:WIAGA

A good article is—

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

2. Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);

(c) it contains no original research; and

(d) it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.

3. Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Review

1. Well-written:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)		Pass
(b) (MoS)		Pass

2. Verifiable with no original research:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)		Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	Exceptionally densely referenced.	Pass
(c) (original research)		Pass
(d) (copyvio and plagiarism)	44% on Earwig, but on review not IMO a copy vio.	Pass

3. Broad in its coverage:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)		Pass
(b) (focused)		Pass

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Notes	Result
	Pass

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Notes	Result
	Pass

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	So far as I can ascertain, all images are in the public domain	Pass
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)		Pass

Result

Result	Notes
Pass	A high quality, well written, rigorously referenced article giving a thorough overview of a little known topic. A huge amount pf work has clearly gone into it and it shows A richly deserved Good Article Gog the Mild (talk) 17:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

References

• Poncet is missing a publisher and location. (W. Lewis and London)
• Tsakos and Kleinitz is missing a date of publication.

Prose.

• "According to John, the Alodian king was aware of the baptisms of Nobadia in 543 (Miaphysite branch) and Makuria around 568/569 (Melkite branch)." Mention of the two branches makes no sense other than to the most technical of experts. You need to explain the terms, and/or link them, or at a push delete them.
• "such as those in Musawwarat es-Sufra, for example." You can use "such as" or "for example"; using both is redundant.
• "Droughts, which occurred in Africa between 1150 and 1500,". This reads oddly, it suggests that droughts didn't occur outside this period.
• The last paragraph of Causes of decline is a little long. Is it possible to split it?
• "with 150 "captaincies" residing on both sides of the Nile". You need to explain what captaincies are. (People? Places? Tribal groups?)

Copy edit.

• I have done some minor copy editing as I have gone along. If you don't like anything let me know and we can discuss it.
• In your block quote the ellipses shouldn't be in brackets.

It is looking pretty good. More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild Concerning point four: the thing is that the whole paragraph is about the same topic, i.e. the arrival and settlement of the Arabs. It also doesn't seem to be that much longer than paragraph one of the "Aftermath" chapter or the "Geographical extent" paragraph/chapter. LeGabrie (talk) 18:46, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@LeGabrie: No worries. It is not a fail issue. If I were the author I would break it. But I can see why you prefer not to. Ping me when you have finished work on the article. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:51, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild Reworked the other four points. LeGabrie (talk) 19:31, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• "together with some "famous necklace of pearls and rubbies"". If "some", then "necklace" should be plural; if singular, use 'a' instead of "some". (PS rubies, not rubbies.)

Dôné. LeGabrie (talk) 10:27, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

This is really good. I will do some more tomorrow.Gog the Mild (talk) 22:25, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• I have made some further copy edits. Could you please check them carefully and ping me if there are any you are not happy with. Once that is settled I think that we are done. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I think "bishop" and "king" are not written with capital letters. Everything else is good. LeGabrie (talk) 16:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

You are right. I was wrong. Apologies. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild I think the nomination is still officially halted, since the bot hasn't added a GA icon to the article. Also didn't receive a notification on my Talk page that the nomination succeeded. LeGabrie (talk) 12:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@LeGabrie: Strange. I overwrote the 'on hold'. It is gone from the nominations list. Perhaps the bot is working slowly. Give it another 24 hours and if it doesn't resolve itself I will leave a message with the powers that be. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:09, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Aρογα, Aroua

Why is Aρογα transliterated Aroua? Should the Greek be Aρουα? I tried to find these terms through Google and came up with nothing. What is the source for the Greek? Several sources I check describe "Alodia" as the Greek name, as opposed to Arabic Alwa. Srnec (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Was Greek lettering used as a fudge because Nubian is not widely supported? Perhaps somebody experienced with FAs should look at this, since we can't use Greek and call it Greek when we are representing Nubian, but I'm not sure Old Nubian should be in the lead if enough devices can't render it properly. Srnec (talk) 14:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Srnec (talk · contribs) "Alodia" appears in the records of John of Ephesus, but "Aroua" appears in native Nubian sources (one document from Qasr Ibrim and a graffito from Faras) written in Greek, that's why I chose "Aroua". How the kingdom was called in Nubian is still not certain, though it was probably similar to "Aroua" or "Alwa". LeGabrie (talk) 12:33, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not how I read it. I see Aroua as one of the "Old Nubian elements" noted by Lajtar in the vocabulary of the inscription. Pierce makes this explicit by calling it "Gk/ON" in his list of Nubian-language toponyms. (It is like España in the sentence, "I am from España". It does not become the English name of the country by being used in an English sentence.) In any case, Aρογα is clearly wrong. ⲁⲣⲟⲩⲁ corresponds to Aρουα. Srnec (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Srnec (talk · contribs) "I see Aroua as one of the "Old Nubian elements" noted by Lajtar in the vocabulary of the inscription." That's speculation of yours tho. "Makouria", the other toponym mentioned in the text, is clearly Greek, not Nubian, since the Nubian name for Makuria was Dotawo. Furthermore, a few months ago I was in contact with Mr. Lajtar and he told me that the native name of Alodia is still not precisely known. If you still find a source that explicitly suggests an endonym you are of course free to add it. LeGabrie (talk) 17:47, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Srnec (talk · contribs) Well, in LeGabrie's defense, it could also be all-caps ΑΡΟΥΑ, which is still Greek. You're right that's not the same as γ, of course. — LlywelynII 03:36, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I fixed the formatting of the Greek and Arabic. Alodia is obviously a transcription of the actual Greek name Ἀλοδία, which I found several cites for; I included one from a Byzantist who presumably knows whereof she speaks. There are also citations for Ἀλουα (not Ἀρουα) on the internet but they're less trustworthy to the point where it's not worth mentioning until a better cite is found.

If there are Nubian inscriptions featuring the name Aroua in Nubian or Coptic, that's great and should be included but A) those languages aren't Greek, B) those languages don't use Greek script, C) if it is medieval Greek you should include the word's aspiration and accent marks, and D) you'll need citations in the text. It's probably better if all of the name material were gathered into a single #Name section just under the lead. In any case, "Aroua" in some graffiti wouldn't be a reason to ignore "Alodia" in the sources; the article should include both. — LlywelynII 02:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, LeGabrie (talk · contribs), 1st, thanks for all the work and love put into this page. 2nd, try to use the proper ʾ or ʿ mark for Arabic transcriptions since a simple ' could be either one of them. You can find them in the Arabic menu at the bottom of the edit page. 3rd, is there a reason the page didn't mention the alternate name forms found on the German, French, &c. versions of this article? If it was just to keep the lead clean, I'd say it's another reason to think about adding a #Name section. — LlywelynII 03:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

LlywelynII (talk · contribs) The term "Alodia" actually doesn't appear in a single source, but is made up by modern scholars out of the ethnonym "Alodeans" as it appears in John of Ephesus report of their Christianization. I quote a private conversation I've once had with Prof. Adam Lajtar: "I would suggest to abandon the name Alodia as suspect. In many cases it is just a creation of modern scholars made out of the ethnonyms "Alodeans/Alwades"" (2018). I suggest we stick to "Aroua", as is this the certain name of the kingdom in Nubian Greek, attested in a graffito from Faras and a letter from Qasr Ibrim.

Names like "Alodien" in German or "Alodie" in French are just indigenizations of "Alodia". The attested historical names remain Alwa (Arabic sources and a Greek papyrus from the sixth century, see Pierce 1995), Aroua and John of Ephesus "Alodeans". LeGabrie (talk) 13:13, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit: I just rechecked John of Ephesus and apparently, in one passage the state is explicitly referred to as "Alodia": "The narrative of Longinus entering the Alodian country and how he converted them with gladness and baptized them." Don't know if the translation is 100% faithful or if in the Greek original it's "in the country of the Alodeans" but ayway, the Nubian-Greek name has priority. LeGabrie (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Great article and good work

Thank you everyone for making this article featured on the main page. It is important as it brings up some of our most forgotten historical tragedies. Dagana4 (talk) 16:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)