Talk:Hypatia

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:29, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I swapped it out for the corresponding svg image, File:Conic Sections.svg. The fonts are different, but otherwise it looks the same. I don't see the font change or anything else as a good reason to be using the png instead of the svg. So after this swap the deletion discussion should not affect this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

"Jewish-led massacre"

Natemup (talk · contribs) insists on adding to this article a story about an unrelated event in Alexandria in which, according to a Christian propagandist, some Jews massacred some Christians, giving the Christians an excuse to expel the Jews, loot their property, and blame them for their own expulsion. Given that the Jews were uninvolved in Hypatia's teaching or murder, I fail to see the relevance of these events to the article on Hypatia, and Natemup's insertion of this episode gives the appearance to me of trying to find excuses to blame other people than the murderers for Hypatia's murder. But I'm past the limit for reverts to the article, and it appears from past behavior that if I did revert then Natemup would just continue to edit-war to push it in. So instead can we have some discussion on whether this is relevant, please? Per WP:BRD the article should be left in the pre-addition state while discussion goes on but I'm not going to be the one to put it into that state. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

In my view, it seems at best tangential to the subject of Hypatia herself (WP:UNDUE), and loading up additional details that were third-hand stories when the ancient writers set them down seems like a poor way to do history. XOR'easter (talk) 21:44, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I can understand your point, but the entire story (expulsion and all) is being sourced from the ancient "Christian propagandist" in question. Why include only half of his story? It's all relevant to the controversy leading to Hypatia's murder. natemup (talk) 22:07, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Misinformation with regard to reference

the statement on the live page says, "despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime.[8]"

If you read the reference it dose not say that. It says, "she was the head of the Platonist school in Alexandria."

The reference does not say what the live page claims it says.

And the idea that the Library of Alexandria no longer existed in the the time of Hypatia is disputed by multiple sources. For example, in the transcript of the TED talk entitled "What really happened to the Library of Alexandria" Elizabeth Cox wrote, "by the end of the 5th century CE, the great library had vanished." This is after the time of Hypatia.

Greek vs Egyptian

User:Ekrepali and a succession of anonymous IP editors insist on replacing "Egyptian" in the lead by "Greek", with sources various academic articles using that term. They have repeatedly made that change and have so far failed to discuss it at all. From all we actually know of Hypatia, she was clearly a person of unknown ethnicity, living in a place that is now Egypt, that was at the time part of the Greek cultural milieu. I imagine that this is what all reputable sources about her mean when calling her "Greek"; less-reputable sources don't give the matter any thought and assume without evidence that she was ethnically Greek. It is reasonable to guess that her ethnicity might have been Greek but we cannot rely on such guesswork here. I have the strong impression that the IP is pushing the ethnically-Greek angle; for instance, by linking the word "Greek" in their preferred version of the lead to an article on people of Greek ethnicity. Can we discuss here what our lead should say about her, and how to accurately and concisely convey that context, rather than (as the IP is doing) pushing a point of view based only on the prevalence of words in sources and not what those words actually mean, and trying to get the edit to stick through sheer stubbornness rather than consensus? I'm not convinced we need to state a nationality here at all, let alone an ethnicity. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

"despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime"?

The article states that "Since the late twentieth century, some portrayals have associated Hypatia's death with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime."

It then links to a page of Jonathan Theodore's book, The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as a source. However, even in Theodore's own words: "There was no 'Great Library' in the sense of the iconic vast, priceless collection."

The articles current edit seems to imply that there was no Library of Alexandria at all existing during Hypatia's lifetime and that this is an established "fact". But that's not what the source is saying and there's currently no evidence to prove this either way. The source is saying that if the library did exist, then it likely didn't include as immense of a collection as many people presume it did. I.e., it could have existed, but if it did it wasn't "great".

While it's highly probable that the library was no longer in existence at this time, it certainly hasn't been found to be a fact that it didn't.

Even in Wikipedia's own article about the Library of Alexandria, it includes the possibility of the library still standing in 642 AD (227 years after Hypatia's death) in the section which reads: In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al-As. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar. Bar-Hebraeus, writing in the thirteenth century, quotes Omar as saying to Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."

Again, it's unlikely that the library was still standing during this time (and the article correctly emphasizes the skepticism around the claim) but this does underscore that this is a disputed matter, regardless of how probable or improbable it may seem. TheGutterMonkey (talk) 09:41, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

The image of Hypatia

David Eppstein you reverted my changes on adding a particular image of Hypatia. What do you think of Hypatia by Julius Kronberg, 1889.jpg? It is a depiction of her from a much more reliable artist. I understand, of course, that there are no surviving illustrations of Hypatia in her time, but I generally think a visual representation within a person's biography is beneficial. GuardianH (talk) 09:25, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

No, it is not. Sorry, but we've debated this a million times. There is no conceivable value at all in plastering articles with random imaginary images of people, when those images tell us exactly nothing about the subject of the article – the only thing they do is giving readers a fake sense of familiarity with the subject, which is illusionary and, as such, actually harmful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:23, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

It's more than harmful, it's an embarrassment. It tells the readers "we care more about making our articles look decorative than being informative". See WP:PORTRAIT for more on why this kind of image should not be included. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:38, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Original sources are missing

Perhaps I am blind but I didn't see any list of original sources relating to Hypatia. Where are they? What are all the writers quoted in this article basing their opinions on? van Lustig (talk) 14:17, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Carl Sagan's Cosmos

In all fairness to the late Dr. Carl Sagan, he states in the last chapter ("Who speaks for Earth?") of his book Cosmos, "its last remnants were soon destroyed after Hyptia's death"; this indicates that Dr. Sagan was aware that the Library of Alexandria had largely ceased to exist in "any recognizable form" during the lifetime of Hyptia. Jehannette 04:11, 26 November 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jehannette (talk • contribs)