Talk:Music of Mesopotamia

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cno43.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Dates and time periods

This article needs more dates and time periods. It covers like 3,000 years. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Removing unsourced content

There's been some long-standing content in this article that I don't know what to do with. All of it deals with music theory. Much of it is unsourced. Someone clearly went to a lot of trouble working through this, someone who knows music theory better than I do. So I've tried to fill in the citations but I cannot find a source for everything.

In particular, I can't find anywhere it says they used the Lydian scale. Heptatonic yes. Lydian no. But removing this would also probably mean removing the image of the Lydian scale as well.

I'm thinking large cuts need to be made, but I don't want to do it without some discussion.

The paragraphs I'm zeroing in on are:

• The last paragraph of the wind subsection, in the instruments section.
• Most of the material from the last three paragraphs of the music theory section.

Anyone have concerns? GuineaPigC77 (talk) 17:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Agree on the material in the wind section, which sounds like OR. The music theory material is also in the fr.wiki article, but it doesn't cite any sources that aren't present here. If you're finding that the sources don't support what the text says, then the offending material should go. What else... Eaton says here that the Babylonians had a mode called the nīd qabli which was like the Lydian mode. There're fairly recent articles on Mesopotamian scales here and here. Furius (talk)

Yes, please cut the 3rd paragraph of the winds section. The first line, while properly sourced, is utterly misleading, as there is no way Mesopotamians had anything close to the complex valve system which distinguishes modern-day brass instruments from earlier ones. As far as the last three paragraphs in music theory, I would say information worth keeping is the line about 'cyclic theory of music', something about the use of the Heptatonic scale, and probably the line about the tritone/octave. The last paragraph seems to be some OR interpretation of existing guidelines on Mesopotamian music, and is probably worth cutting. Aza24 (talk) 01:25, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Aza24 I just reread what you said about the complex valve system so I went ahead and removed mention of the modern French horn and trumpet. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 03:57, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Furius Thanks for those sources. I was able to use two of the sources you provided to find support for Lydian scale so I added those (there's plenty more in these sources too, I'm still digging in.) I think it means we can also keep the image of the Lydian scale. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 02:42, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I went ahead and made deletions. Final place I'm eying is the last paragraph of the music theory section. It's cited and I'm up for digging in and finding page numbers, but overall it seems unclear. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 03:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Also, Aza24, I notice in this edit that you removed the image of the detail of the lyre. Any particular reason or just freeing up space on the page? Argument for keeping: it nicely illustrates the point about adornment of stringed instruments, it's a high quality image, and unlike the lyre image at the bottom of this article (under surviving instruments), it isn't used anywhere else on the English Wikipedia. So it seems like a great place to share relevant content from Commons with the reader.

I plan to expand the string section by adding info about the tuning of string instruments. Assuming that extra text opens up space for another image, any objection to my putting it back in? GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:21, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

This all sounds good to me! Furius (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

GuineaPigC77, on my screen the percussion image pushes into the string section, so including an additional image there would probably not be ideal; also the proposed image doesn't really show the instrument, so seems an unnecessary. It is a nice quality-image though, I would recommend adding it to the gallery in the lyres of Ur. Aza24 (talk) 22:38, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Agree, it makes more sense in the Lyres of Ur article. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm considering removing this source altogether:

• Goss, Clint (2012). "Flutes of Gilgamesh and Ancient Mesopotamia". Flutopedia. Retrieved 8 January 2012.

which, although sourced, does not appear to be peer edited. I also plan to remove the content that cites it, which is much of the wind section. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 01:41, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

This is probably right, but I think it might be a useful thing to include in the "External links" section, since it is a well-referenced and well-written piece of work, and can't the material on fingerholes just be supported by a ref to Galpin (which is what Goss is quoting on that point)? Furius (talk) 14:41, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Good call. I might have been too hasty. Worth noting that Kilmer 2001 describes the pipes and holes but not the reeds: "Five fragments of a pair of silver pipes were also found at Ur; the pipes have finger-holes but show no evidence of mouth reeds." Not sure how to phrase all this. Far as I can tell the pipe instrument was a double reed instrument like the oboe? I'll need to read more but if you have a solution then by all means. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

According to Lowergren, the Ur silver pipes have no preserved reeds, but the absence of "notches, embouchure holes, or other details" indicates that they were reed instruments, not flutes. Whether they had a single or double reed is uncertain, but he notes that they are very narrow compared to other double reed instruments. I think "we don't know" is probably as much detail as we would want to go into on this page? (it looks to me like there is enough information around for the Ur silver pipes to get their own article down the line) Furius (talk) 16:39, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Helpful Lowergren source, thanks. I reworked that paragraph. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 22:13, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Can I cite a museum artifact?

I'm working on the section on flutes, and following along with the Flutopedia article (http://Flutopedia.com/mesopotamian_flutes.htm). Goss mentions several depictions of art that show flutes. For at least the first one, he's not citing a source but rather just pointing to the museum's artifact page. I'm guessing it's fine to do the same, but I'm not sure how to do it. Wikipedia:Citing sources doesn't have a template for citing a museum artifact. External link? My proposed text is:

There are numerous depictions of flutes in visual art, including a woman playing a flute on a shell ornament from Nippur dating to 2600-2500 BCE, a cylinder seal dating to 2400-2200 BCE, and in bas-reliefs.

For example, the woman playing the flute is here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/30004117

Is this OR? GuineaPigC77 (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I think one uses "Cite web". If the points are discussed in the text on the museum website, that's fine, as the MetMuseum website is an RS. However, if you're making points about the artefact which are not in the text (ie interpreting it for yourself), that is OR, unless the things that you are saying are very obvious (e.g. you could say that the figure has five dots around her neck without further source) Furius (talk) 07:35, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

@Furius thanks. Had some technical challenges with using short footnotes with references that have no author, and got "Cite error: The named reference ... was defined multiple times with different content", which I researched here: Template:Sfn#No_author_name_in_citation_template I tried the "name=" option and also tried "id=" option, but to no avail.

My workaround was to put the museum artifact numbers in the author parameter. It's not ideal (and not correct) but for now it serves to uniquely identify the object with an inline citation without using an external link in the article's body. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 15:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Not a problem that I've encountered before, but I think it works now? Furius (talk) 18:14, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Great, it seems to work well now. I'll have to remember that trick. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

First paragraph needs work

Currently the first paragraph reads:

The historical region of Mesopotamia saw widespread musical activities throughout its history. An important part of Mesopotamian society, extant information on music derives from Mesopotamian artwork, texts on clay tablets, and a small number of surviving instruments.

In the first sentence, I'd like to fix the double use of "history", plus the dissonant verb/noun pair: "seeing" music. The second sentence is phrased awkwardly: it makes it sound like "extant information" was an important part of Mesopotamian society. Here's an attempt:

Music was ubiquitous throughout Mesopotamian history, playing important roles in both religious and secular contexts. Mesopotamia is of particular interest to music scholars because evidence from the region, which includes artifacts and artistic depictions, is also enriched with written texts.

The last sentence is pulled from the section on Early evidence. So I would just move it up. I think both sections will read just fine. Another option here would be to move the whole Early evidence section up, which I think would work great - but then I don't know how to cite it properly.

I may be bold and try something here, but it's the first paragraph so I wanted to explain what I'm doing and why. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good! I think your instinct to be bold is right in this case; at this point your excellent work has so thoroughly reshaped the article, that you are definitely best-placed to write a lead that captures accurately what it is all about. Furius (talk) 18:28, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Furius! This is the first time I've put this much work into an article so it's been a learning experience. It's great to have so much support from y'all and learn how things work.

So what's next? I think the article is much improved since it was rated Start-class. But I see a few areas where it needs a good deal of work. For one thing, there's lots more to say about instruments, and the music theory section could use expert attention. I do have another image I'm hoping to include (it's a close up of the Elamite orchestra that is being described in the block quote from Sachs in the Music theory section), but it's got copyright issues over at Commons. But for now, do we ask the community for a new rating? I assume in that process we get a lot of comments and suggestions for improvement. It would be really cool to get this to Good Article rating someday. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 21:00, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you've definitely made the article far better than it was. To be honest, article ratings are an aspect of the project that I've never properly engaged with. This must be at least a "B" by now even to a harsh critic. A good way to bring in further input would be to put out a call on the talk pages of one or more of the Wikiprojects listed up top. Both WP Near East and WP Music look to be fairly active.

@Gerda Arendt: you're very experienced at making articles good and an expert on music (although very modern music compared to the topic of this article), so I wonder whether you might have thoughts either on the state of this article or on how to go about starting the GA process. Furius (talk) 21:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Remaining issues

As an experienced GA reviewer and nominator who has written prolifically in ancient music topics, I don't know why pinging Gerda was needed—you could have just asked me! Furius, I would not call the WP Near East project active, and the WP Music project almost never has interest in topics before 1900. Article ratings aside are extremely informal and do not really matter until GA and FA, so I would agree the former is a reasonable goal. Per GuineaPigC77's query above, here are some remaining issues before GAN.

• Article really needs a background section explaining what Mesopotamia is. Obviously it would be brief, as this article is about the area's music, not the area itself, but the topic is too massive to not have this. I did something similar at Parthian music#Background. I suggest this background section be added to the "Remains" section (which I just created), so then it would probably be renamed something like "Context and remains" or "Background and remains" (or maybe "Background" alone is sufficient).
• Influence section is probably the one which needs the most improvement. There is no substantial coverage of Mesopotamian influence on Greek music, which is immense, see Burkholder. Influence on Early Persian/Iranian music is also relevant and missing
• There is too much use of Sachs, whose research is thoroughly outdated and notoriously unreliable. Note that his 2012 publication is a reprint of a 1940 publication.
• Some of the article is too stubby, in that there are too many short paragraphs and not enough coherence in individual sections. The 'Role of musicians' and 'Music Theory' sections are the main exponents of this issue, though the 'Uses of music' section could probably be better organized, presumably into: "Paragraph introducing the topic" "Paragraph on Secular occasions" "Paragraph on Religious occasions" (or whatever order of these last two).
• The Further reading section is massive. For a GA there does not need to be as big of a focus using every relevant source (like there would be for FA), but the size of this section is concerning, since it implies there is a lot left to be said. We should try and go through some of these to figure out which we can use, a task I'm happy to assist with.
• The Sources section is a bit messy, formatting wise, but I'm happy to help clean this up. Aza24 (talk) 22:25, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. These are extremely helpful comments. I agree with all 6 points and I'll add one more - as a relatively new editor I have a tendency to stick close to the source, for fear of WP:OR. On the other hand, I've been perusing WP:CLOP and I'd like to be sure that it's not pushing on that side either. The cases I'm thinking about are: lists of things, jargon phrases, etc. Are there automated tools for catching stuff like this? I don't expect issues but I want to be sure this complies. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 00:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

One other thing. There is a mix of primary and secondary sources here - are we about on track with the balance? Thanks again. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 01:43, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

(oh, Aza24, I'm sorry. As I say, it's not a process that I'm familiar with, so I'm also not familiar with who is engaged with it. I meant no disrespect and thank you for this very helpful evaluation. Furius (talk) 05:31, 23 August 2022 (UTC) )

Apology accepted, and no worries at all! Aza24 (talk) 16:34, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Aza, and all I could have done is point to you. I believe after the points above are cleared, it could go for GA, - the nomination is easy. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:44, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Gerda! Aza24 (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

GuineaPigC77, the main tool for locating copyright violations is this one. Close paraphrasing is notoriously hard to avoid, especially when academics often put certain ideas so coherently that one can't think of another way to do so! (though the opposite must be just as common). My strategy is usually to find more than one source expressing an idea, and seeing two+ ways of presenting it helps me come up with my own that is both faithful to the content, but also not close paraphrasing. Of course this is not always possible; we can certainly spotcheck the text to check for this, though I have not seen any issues as of yet. Aza24 (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Aza24. The tool yielded "Violation unlikely" so that's good for peace of mind. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 20:08, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm starting with the first bullet point - working on background section for Mesopotamia, modeled after the Parthian article. Thanks! GuineaPigC77 (talk) 20:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Looks great so far! I'm wondering about the 2nd line in the lead, "Mesopotamia is of particular interest to music scholars because evidence from the region, which includes artifacts and artistic depictions, is also enriched with written texts". I'm not really sure if this is true—that is, Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Chinese music all have written documents associated with music to varying extents. What about something like: Mesopotamia is of particular interest to scholars because evidence from the region, which includes artifacts, writings and artistic depictions, is among the earliest well-documented musical cultures." ? Aza24 (talk) 06:16, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Aza24 Works for me! GuineaPigC77 (talk) 07:34, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The third paragraph isn't quite working. My aim was to give some background on the arts in general - to motivate the discuss of music. We probably also need something on religion and maybe even something about daily life? Eek it could explode. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 08:32, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's hard to keep things at the right level of detail! I think the key is to provide the background that is going to be important for the rest of the article. So, the reader is going to need to be told about the nature of written sources (since they are going to learn that there are written texts about music) and about the existence of temples and the priestly elite (since they are going to hear about religious music). I'm not sure that they need to be told about the date when pottery was introduced, etc. From the material in that para at the moment, one could pare it down to "Mesopotamian culture was rich in the arts and architecture. Depictions of musical instruments are found on wall paintings, wall reliefs, cylinder seals, and pottery. Thousands of clay tablets reveal the names of instruments, their parts, their tuning, and instructions for playing them."

P.S. I'm not sure about treating 539 BC the end-date, since there's plenty of cuneiform evidence which touches on musical culture (particularly in religious contexts) from the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods. Furius (talk) 13:00, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Both of those dates came from Mesopotamia (lead, paragraph 2), but yea maybe we want to put harder dates around this whole article. What would they be?

Agree - probably doesn't need to cover pottery and the like. What about dance? I don't think it's treated elsewhere (that I know of, the word doesn't appear in Art of Mesopotamia), and is related to music. In any case, it sounds like additional material to cover includes tablets and temples. I assume we don't want to add a 4th paragraph, so that's going to have to squeeze into this 3rd paragraph. Thanks Furius! GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

But really, as you say, we just need to introduce what the reader needs to know for the article, and dance doesn't qualify. I am working on a full paragraph on the secular use of music so maybe it could go there. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I think dance and pottery are okay to include, but to Furius' point, it should be a much briefer and general mention than it is currently. I'm thinking both the first and (particularly) the second paragraphs can be trimmed and combined.

Since Achaemenid music is a distinct—though little known—period of music, the date seems okay, but should be phrased clearer, possibly something about the culture being absorbed into that of the conquering Persian Achaemenid empire. Aza24 (talk) 19:03, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Furius you are talking about paring down - please forgive me for adding more. I wanted to first add the content you asked for. Is this what you had in mind? But I agree it clearly needs to be shorter - if either of y'all have something in mind feel free to make big cuts. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 21:57, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Music instruction in edubbas

Currently we have a phrase under the Music education section which reads "whether music was included is largely uncertain" - yet the earlier part of the paragraph offered details of it already. I'm going through Lucas 1979 (which is already cited) and finding extensive material on it, including quotes from dialog about music instruction, etc. Not sure what to do here. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The "whether music was included is largely uncertain" is only in relation to the schooling of elite children, hence the beginnning of the sentence "Children of the elite received a comprehensive education in reading, writing, religion, the sciences, law and medicine, among other topics;". I've added "Outside of edubbas" to hopefully make this clearer? Aza24 (talk) 17:51, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes and it's also clear in the article - I just didn't read carefully enough, apologies. In that case, this section can be expanded because I'm finding great material on music in scribal schools. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:06, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

On the updates

GuineaPig, your work thus far has been incredible. I will do my best to leave detailed comments this week; I think with a little prose and formatting clean up, you will be in great shape for GAN. I will note that the "Glossary" section is a rather unorthodox, and incorporating the definitions into the text directly would probably be more effective. – Aza24 (talk) 07:34, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much Aza! In advance of your comments I'll try to summarize progress on your 6 points.

• Background - Done, but too long. Currently it's 5 paragraphs and I think the goal is 2-3. I've had trouble cutting here. Furius suggested a solution for the third paragraph which is to cut everything but the last bit, which seems reasonable to me. And Aza your suggestion was to shorten and combine the last two paragraphs (and possibly also the first two). I'll take another go at this.
• Influence - Now there's content for Greece and Persia. I could also do a subsection for Egypt, etc. What's there is not especially technical, but perhaps an expert could help here.
• Sachs - I've been going through and trying to find second sources to support everything Sachs says. I've swapped a few. Here's what's left for Sachs:
  • toy instruments
  • description of ritual involving putting cultic objects inside a drum (finding support for this kind of thing from Franklin 2006)
  • quote about inferring music theory from images of harp players
  • the idea that balags had a proper names (which is confirmed by Kilmer & Mirelman 2013 and others)
  • the bit about Mesopotamian clappers showing up later in Egypt
• Stubbiness - Much progress here, but still a good deal of paragraphs (or sections) need smoothing out and threads to tie everything together. It's still too punchy. Some sections read like a list of facts.
• Further reading - There have been big cuts here. Furius thanks for salvaging these sources - there's been a lot of good material. Several sources I'm having trouble locating, and some are in languages I don't understand, so I can't comment further on those.
• Sources are messy - and I think I'm contributing to the mess a bit. Feel free to give me tips - short footnotes are new to me.

Overall I'm happy with progress and I've got motivation to keep pushing. Thanks in advance for your comments. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 18:44, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

A few others:

• Cuneiform - So far it's just in the Divination of instruments section. There are lots of other places it can go, but not sure if that will be helpful vs. distracting for the reader.
• Glossary - Tbh I'm seeing enough variation in this vocabulary that it might be futile anyway. Let's cut it.
• Tablography - Like discography (not serious about name). Is this useful to a reader who might want to explore specific tablets in more detail, or is this WP:NOTDATABASE. It would look something like this:
  • UET VI/3 899 and UET VII 74 - Two tablets relating to tuning of string instruments; they give “instructions which tell a musician how he or she can change a sammû instrument's tuning from one ‘mode’ to another”.
  • RS 15.30, RS 15.49, and RS 17.387 - In three fragments, the Hurrian Hymns represent the oldest known notated music.
  • there would be about 4 more...

GuineaPigC77 (talk) 19:11, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that this has been massively improved! I don't see any problem with the footnotes, to be honest. Some of them have rather long references, but that can't really be helped. On tablography, I suppose these could go in a "primary sources" section alongside the bibliography? Furius (talk) 19:35, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

  Great, let's see if that works. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 20:41, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

  I have not forgotten about this! Will leave comments asap, getting very busy this week. Aza24 (talk) 23:04, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks so much Aza! I'm in no rush. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 03:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Comments on the Updates

• The influence section is a bit confusing in its layout, though most thorough in it scope. The "Classical education also..." paragraph presumably refers to Classical Greek education, so feels like it should be in the Greece section.
• In general we (pun intended!) should be avoiding breaking the 4th wall with things like of "we can see" or "this shows us".
• The music theory section has improved a lot. I am little concerned about the "From this relief..." paragraph. I was under the impression that there was debate between scholars over which scales were used, but this provides a list via various sources—I may be mistaken in my presupposition.
• The String section would be much more effective if each paragraph discussed only one instrument; at the moment information on harps, lyres and lutes is often overlapped, making the division confusing
• In general, the prose is not particularly fluid, probably a result of wanting to include as much information as possible. At some point, perhaps later in the process, you might consider requesting a copy edit from the WP:GOCE
• Will look further later. Aza24 (talk) 21:20, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks Aza! I'll start working on these.

  Regarding the "From this relief..." paragraph, if I understand your concern, it's that we state two different scales (pentatonic and heptatonic)? I don't see an issue since it seems they used both scales. But I may misunderstand your concern.

  WP:GOCE looks great, and seems worth pursuing when the time comes. Also, thanks for the help cleaning up references! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 04:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  • 4th wall should be fixed now.
  • String section. Can you clarify? There are 5 paragraphs there, and I'd topic them as (1) intro, (2) lyre, (3) lute, (4) tuning, and (5) additional terminology. Perhaps it should be clearer that the tuning section is about harps? One issue here is that I'm fairly sure a sammû is a harp, but I don't know of a source that explicitly says so. Apart from making the harp clearer, were there other paragraphs you had in mind?
  • Fluidity. You're right, and I agree it's because there is a lot of information cobbled together. One idea is to identify material that needs expansion (like a sentence or two that needs a full paragraph) - I'll bet the more we have 1 paragraph = 1 topic, the smoother it will flow. An alternative would be to identify material to remove, with the same goal.
  • I agree the organization of the influence section could be improved. As far as classical education, my understanding is that things really went both ways (between, e.g., Mesopotamia and Greece), but for this section I tried to identify the elements that flowed from the former to the latter (e.g., music theory, deification of instruments, etc.).

  GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 20:12, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

A small thing: I think that the start of the section on Persia could be rephrased. I'm not sure what event is being connected with 2000 BC, since the Elamite kingdoms are older than that and are pointed to as one of the cultures influencing Iran. I'm guessing that the reference is to state formation on the Iranian plateau? I think it is important to be precise here, because precision is important and because vague phrasing may prompt nationalists to descend on the page. Furius (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I got that date from the original source that was there, but I remember thinking it was quite arbitrary. I'll let someone more knowledgable in Iranian history suggest an alternative? GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 00:22, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

What's next?

Hooray!

Our reviewer sounded optimistic about an eventual FAC. I assume this means a lot more work, but I'm up for it. Perhaps the next step is to send to GOCE?

Thanks for y'all's guidance and patience showing me the ropes and how this process works. It's been fun and rewarding working together! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 16:43, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

@GuineaPigC77: IMO the article prose is very well written and could stand to be nominated right now; GOCE certainly couldn't hurt but I don't think it's necessary to bring it to FA quality. Any remaining issues should easily be uncovered during the nomination itself. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Iazyges Okay great to hear! In that case, I'll go ahead and nominate it. Anything special I need to do, or can I just follow Featured_article_candidates#Nominating. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 04:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@GuineaPigC77: Just the instructions there will suffice. You may wish to add the others you worked with as co-nominators, but this is not required. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:27, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

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:

• Hurrian Hymn.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:52, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Minor issues

1. Calling Enki a god of music - with no source cited - seems like a severe overestimation. Is this a far reaching example of original research relying on late god lists where deities representing professions are equated with him? There was no singular "deity of music", there were minor gods representing specific music-related professions (Lumha for the gala, Tumga/Dunga for singers [nar]) and deified instruments, but that's much more specific. And they weren't even consistently linked with Enki.

2. the identity of the figure on the Burney Relief is far from certain and authors such as F. A. M. Wiggermann oppose identification with any major deity, let alone specifically Ishtar.

3. Gender of gala and a few individual singers like Ur-Nanshe from ED Mari is a subject of debate, not the gender of musicians as a class in general as claimed in the article (meanwhile, other labels which might have designated noninary, gender nonconforming, etc. people - like pilipili - have nothing to do with music). HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 11:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually scratch that, there are more issues. Gala were just one type of musician, and are attested before the OB period - this is really basic stuff. Also, sources from the 1940s are way too outdated to use. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2024 (UTC)