Talk:Pelasgians/GA1

GA Review

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Hi, I'll be reviewing this article. I'll post proper comments within two days. -- Philcha (talk) 15:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Checklist

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Most of what you have said makes sense so I must wonder: why? You ought to do some re-editing of this article, why haven't you? 1. I must disagree with the sections on the quotations from classical authors, these are very useful and show the variety of theories starting in Antiquity. 2. As for explaining most terms, there's no need, at least not in detail. There's the hyperlink, one of the great features of Wikipedia and the web. 3. About the quotations: I would try and find better ones, that is from other editions/translations, because some of these are in very awkward English. 4.The major problem I find with the article is the lack of references and substantial evidence (either facts or deductions) about the origins of the Pelasgians (the middle section of the article). Plenty of theories are mentioned, and not one reference or a shred of evidence. 5.This is for those who have written the article: I would be very careful about defending one theory in one line and in the next the opposite. e.g. Pelasgian/Pelasgus and the etymology. Someone wrote that it must be non-indo-european; later on the text states that the etymology is clearly greek and comes from "flat", therefore, "people of the flat" or "people of the sea", etc. 6.There is some sort of obsession instead of a scientific approach that is about claiming that the Pelasgians were not indo-europeans and therefore not greeks.So it could be that they were not from the same wave of migration, and had a different accent (other tribes would immediately say, different tongue or different people!). They would still be under the designation of early Greeks. 7. This is another problem with many of these articles: there must be appropriate adjectivation/terminology: early Greeks, Minoan Greeks, Mycenean, etc, possibly for this period, Hellenes and early Hellenes are better terms

I will be reviewing the article in the future and making my contribution if someone like you makes some serious editing. I do not want to erase some of those very bad paragraphs yet because I do not have enough material from the web to include and create a good article, I would just leave blanks. This is not a good article, not yet, it is messy! We'll talk later. GFlusitania (talk) 00:06, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Initial comments

I apologise for taking so long to provide my first set of comments - I had to do some reading first to build up my background knowledge.

This is going to be difficult. Even after doing some reading, and despite the fact that I have a degree in Latin & Greek, I found it very difficult to follow this article. I think readers with no initial knowldge will be unable to learn much from it.

First I think the article has to explain some basic terms, for readers who are not familiar with the movements of "races" (physical / genetic types), cultures (artefacts, mainly pottery, architecture and religious items) and languages that created the East Mediterannean world. "Hellenes" is obviously the most important of these terms. Then the article must always make it clear which aspect of the "Hellene" vs non-"Hellene" is it discussing. It also needs to define the borderline between "Hellenes" and "Barbaroi", as the big quote from Herodotus states that the people of Attica were originally "Barbaroi".

I think it also has to give readers a lot more help with the geography - all those ancient names like Thessaly, Epirus, Thrace, Troad, Anatolia, Hellespont, Arcadia, etc. If I were writing the article I'd make a map with all the relevant regions colour-coded. Then I'd use Template:Annotated image to place notes on it, see for example Template:Annotated image/Spider main organs - this technique has the advantage that it's easier to edit than an image with embedded text, the text is alsways legible because its actual text, and the image can be used for other purposes. For example the map could show places with which ancient writers associated the Pelasgians, for example 1=Homer, 2=Hesiod, 3=6th-5th century BC summarisers of mythology (Acusilaus, Hecataeus of Miletus, Hellanicus of Lesbos) 4=5th century BC historians (Herodotus, Thucydides; probably), 5=5th century BC dramatists (tragedians, Aristopahnes), etc. I can help with this technique if it's used in the article, since I often use Template:Annotated image. Such a map will not be able to show town very clearly, and the text should say in which of the map's territories they are located. In particular the article also has to make it clear which Argos is being referred to at each point, as even undergraduate students of Greek history are likely to be aware only of the Peloponnesian Argos. The main text will also have to describe regions within regions, e.g. Pelasgiotis in Thessaly, Phthiotis, Acte. The same map can also be used with different annotations to explain the big quote from Herodotus.

The article should also relate modern place names to ancine tterriroties, e.g. Skourta.

The article needs to give dates for both the ancient writers and the events / peoples to whom they are referring. "Homer" is a particularly difficult case, as the Homeric epics were composed over a long period, transmitted orally and seem to have reached their "final" form in the 8th century BC. The point is that all these writers were descibing events / peoples from several centuries before their own time.

The descriptions of ancient writers' references to the Pelasgians need to be briefer. For example the article's comments on the Catalogue of Trojans include a few details in addition to the location ("fertile", "spearmanship", chiefs) that are irrelevant as they are not used in resolving the mystery of the Pelasgians. The big quote from Ovid is mostly irrelevant, and the important part is that Calchas addressed the Greek forces as "Pelasgian men" - but I'm not sure I'd include Ovid anyway, as he is generally regarded as a fantasy-writer rather than a historian. I'm also not sure Robert Graves is much of an authority on history. However I think the big quote from Herodotus should remain as it is (apart from needing wikilinks and other explanations).

There are several deductions that need to be supported by citations from "modern" classical scholars, otherwise they constitute WP:OR, for example:

• "Dodona,[17] which must be the oracular one in Epirus"
• that King Pelasgus' Argos in Aeschylus' play The Suppliants includes "all of east Greece from the north of Thessaly to the Peloponnesian Argos" - which seems to mean it included Attica. In this passage Danaids needs to be clarified, as it seems to refer to a specific family rather than to the ethnic term "Danaioi" as in the Iliad.
• Identification of Inachus with Peloponnesian Argos.
• "Herodotus also mentions the Cabeiri, the gods of the Pelasgians, whose worship gives an idea of where the Pelasgians once were."
• They colonized Crete and extended their rule over Epirus, Thessaly and by implication over wherever else the ancient authors said they were, beginning with Homer

Points about the ancient references that need to be clarified:

• The part about the Catalogue of Trojans also contains a source of confusion, as "they are mentioned between mentions of the Hellespontine cities and the Thracians of south-eastern Europe" suggests a location in the very south-east corner of Europe but the best-known Larisa is in Thessaly. Is there anything to support the idea that the Catalogue of Trojans follows a geographical sequence?
• Asius of Samos links to a disambiguation page, which does not link to an article. Do you mean the Asius of Samos listed in my ancient copy of the Oxford Classical Dictionary? "(? 7th or 6th cent BC), poet; author of genealogies, satirical poetry ..., and elegiacs" If so, you need to identify him as a 7th or 6th cent BC poet and genealogist, cite the authority for this description (for dictionaries andother references works I generally use {{citation}} with contribution=....).
• Hellanicus of Lesbos wrote Phoronis.

The article needs more analysis of all the theories, both ancient and modern. For example:

• The fragment of Sophocles' Inachus has been used as part of a theory that Pelasgians were closely related to Tyrrhenians and that a group of Tyrrhenians from Asia Minor founded Etruscan culture by migrating to Italy. One of the Thucydides quotes also relates to this theory. But some recent analyses reject the idea of a Tyrrhenian migration from Asia Minor to Etruria (see "Additional sources" below).

Section "Theoretical interpretations" should probably be retitled "Modern aalyses", and possibly moved to the end, after all the evidence.

Section "Inscriptional attestations" looks irrelevant, as it is about the Roman-era inhabitants of Pelasgiotis and says nothing about possible pre-Hellenic inhabitants.

Section "Archaeological evidence" should explain at the start that these are analyses of sites described by ancient authors as inhabited at some time by "Pelasgians". The articles by scholars should be summarised as much as possible rather quoted in large passages.

Additional sources

I found these while trying make myself better-informed about the Pelasgians. You might like to look and see if these are useful.

• "Who Were the Minoans?" by Graham Campbell-Dunn (2006) suggests Pelasgians came from Sahara (desertified 3000-2500 BC) via Crete (Minoans). Campbell-Dunn presents linguistic and architectural evidence linking (in his opinion) Minoan culture to Nigerian Fulani and Yoruba cultures. However I'd treat this with caution, as the author is a retired scholar and may be indulging in a personal pet theory, and this appears to be the publisher's mission.
• The decline of Late Bronze Age civilization as a possible response to climatic change suggests that Philistines were Pelasgoi, based on a quote from Iliad. Philistine cites pottery evidence that Philistines had Greek culture.
• Drews, R. (1992). "Herodotus 1.94, the Drought ca. 1200 B.C., and the Origin of the Etruscans". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. 41 (1): 14–39. Retrieved 2008-10-26. debunks Herodotus 1.84 claim that Etruscans = Tyrrhenians and that there was a massive drought around 1200 BC.
• A Near Eastern Ethnic Element Among the Etruscan Elite? also debunks Etruscans = Tyrrhenian.
• The Colonization of Samothrace ( A. J. Graham, Hesperia, Vol. 71, No. 3, Jul.-Sep. 2002), pp. 231-260; doi: 10.2972/hesp.2002.71.3.231)
  • "the historical identity of the Pelasgians is very hard to pin down, and a strong argument can be made that they are largely a construct of Greek historiography."
  • Herodotus 2.51.2–4 described the pre-Greeks of Samothrace as Pelasgians who had migrated from Athens.
  • ". . . Pelasgians—a name which occurs throughout Greece and which would appear to be used without any particularly precise application to indicate a population that was believed to be aboriginal."
• "Bilingualism in Ancient Society" by James Noel Adams, Mark Janse, Simon Swain (p 333) Odyssey 19.175ff: "Every Language is mixed with others; there (Crete) live ... noble Pelasgians".

• • The Pelasgians are nonetheless coming back today. Lots of publications by amateur

historians are revitalising the Pelasgic theory. Books popularising these ideas are widely read and commented, not only among scholars and specialists. It is interesting to note that some of these books rely on works published outside Albania, such as Robert d’Angely’s books published in France at the beginning of the ‘90s and partly translated in Albanian in 1998 (d'Angely 1998), or Mathieu Aref’s books (Aref 2003), translated in 2007). 1 Pre-war studies on the Pelasgic origin of the Albanians are also known through a small number of studies conducted during socialist Albania which are rediscovered today. Such is for instance Spiro Konda’s book on “The Albanians and the Pelasgic issue”, published in 1962, at a time when these theories were already not in favour (Konda 1962). It is said that the book was eventually published, but without the imprimatur of the Academy of sciences (Bitraku 2008). Another study was written during these years (between 1948 and 1983) but published only recently, in 2005, under the suggestive title of “The Pelasgians, our denied origin” (Pilika 2005). Finally, these ideas are also making their way into academic work. Arsim Spahiu’s book on “Pelasgians and Illyrians in Ancient Greece” is thus the publication of his doctoral thesis defended in France in 2005 (Spahiu 2006)

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/34/34/36/PDF/de_Rapper_2008_-_Looking_for_Europe_on_the_margins_of_Alba_.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.60.24.27 (talk) 10:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Overall impression

At present the article is so far from meeting the Wikipedia:Good article criteria that a "quickfail" would be justified. However I don't like "quickfail" as I know from experience that a determined editor with access to the right sources can make dramatic improvements in a week or two. Please read my comments and the Wikipedia:Good article criteria carefully, and then let me know if you think you can improve this article to GA standard within 2 weeks. You may find it useful to ask fo comments and assistance from Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. -- Philcha (talk) 10:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Failed GA review

It's been 2 weeks since I posted comments, and there has been no response and no significant editing of the article. I'm afraid I have to say that this artcile has failed the GA review.

That's a pity because there is a lot of good material here, and the main task is to present it in a way that's most helpful to readers who are neither Greeks nor historians. --Philcha (talk) 14:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Next time someone submits this for GA review, I suggest it should be under category "World history" - submitting it under "Miscellaneous" creates a risk that potential reviewers will ignore it as it doe snot relate to anything in which they have interest of knowledge. --Philcha (talk) 14:05, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Review Response: Sad, only just bumped into this article -as I did not expect an extensive article about the Pelasgians on Wikipedia- and found it surprisingly excellent. I do accept the comments though, it is indeed hard to follow for people who do not have a background knowledge of the greek world. I hope in the future - when time will be more on my hands - to improve this article myself according to the points of your critique. Even though it failed the GA review I still think that the main creators of this article deserve considerable credit for excellent contributions to Wikipedia. --VoiceOfThePnyx (talk) 18:03, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

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