Talk:Chryselephantine sculpture

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Greece Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greece, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greece on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GreeceWikipedia:WikiProject GreeceTemplate:WikiProject GreeceGreek articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Classical Greece and Rome Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Archaeology Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Visual arts This article is within the scope of WikiProject Visual arts, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of visual arts on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Visual artsWikipedia:WikiProject Visual artsTemplate:WikiProject Visual artsvisual arts articles

A fact from Chryselephantine sculpture appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 November 2007. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that Greek temples? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/November.

The face is bronze, no? Best to say. Also, how often were the sculptures colossal (say 3x life-size? 16:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it's ivory. It's blackened from a fire, probably the very reason it was buried, and thus survives! (I think it's partially restored, but wouldn't know with what). Even just with age, ivory has a tendency to go yellow or brown under certain conditions. The second question is tricky. The two huge examples by Pheidias were obviously highly exceptional. But lacking any kind of decent body of evidence, I don't think we can really tell how usual it was for the statues to be very large. Id there any Classicist reading this who might now? athinaios 16:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear nameless colleagues, can you please discuss your changes before you edit here? Your edits seem to be based on a misunderstanding. The Palaikastro Kouros is a Minoan statuette depicting a clothed or partially clothed man. It has absolutely no connection with Archaic kouroi. In my opinion its popular name is a misnomer, but it is its established name. That's why the article said "so-called Kouros, and why I have removed the link. What connects the Palaikastro figure with chryselephantine sculpture is that it is made of the same materials (there are a few other Aegean bronze age examples of such, but none as famous). athinaios 21:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. I reverted some of your edits, and included others in a slightly altered form. Thanks for spotting some issues. I give detailed reasons for some of my changes below.

• It is not a "chryselephantine Archaic statue", but an Archaic Chryselephantine statue. You wouldn't say "a red-figure Archaic vase", but an "Archaic red-figure vase".
• There is no "Minoan Civilisation of Palaikastro". There is a site of that name with evidence from the Minoan period. Most archaeologists would not refer to "Minoan Civilisation" anyway.
• Your term "Mediterranean region" is actually misleading. Such objects from the 2nd millennium do not occur in Spain or Italy, but exclusively in the Minoan and Mycenaean areas. There is no reason not to refer to the fact that this coincides, roughly, with the later Greek distribution of chryselephantine statues. The text did already say that no link can be proven, but your edit removed important information. I actually have no strong opinion on whether there is any continuity there, but the article shoudl certainly allow for that possibility.
• The wording "would later become part of the Greek world" made perfectly clear that the area in question was not part of the Greek world at the time in question. As does the provided link to the Minoans. (I will try to add a short article on the Palaikastro Kouros soon, but so far I have not found any free pictures of it. I will probably simply go and take some next month. Normally I avoid involving myself in any Minoan-related articles, as most of them, not least the
  Minoan civilisation
  one are a) awful and b) conflict-ridden. I'll also see if I can add some references to this article).
• "Island of Crete" is wordy. In this context, it should be pretty clear that this does not refer to Crete, Nebraska. Anyone who does not know that Crete is an island can click on the link to Crete. It's not good form to make major changes in style unless you overhaul an article completely, or the style used is inappropriate to wikipedia.
• Why do you treat the "Palaikastro Kouros" as a plural ("These should not be confused with...")? It is a single object.
• The Palaikastro figure was NOT constructed "in the same manner" (your wording) as the Chryselephantine statues known from literature or those preserved at Delphi, as it is not built around a wooden framework. What is striking is that it was constructed of the same distincitive materials as the later ones, and, more generally, that it is a composite statue. Again, your edit was misledaing, not helpful. Maybe you could check such facts, even just by googling them, before making such changes.
• The 19th century examples are not "classified as Art Nouveau", they are Art Nouveau. They belong to that style. That's like saying "the Parthenon is a temple classified as Classical" or "classified as Doric".
• Why remove the information that the famous Delphi example is sometime seen as a depiction of Apollo? The wording made clear that this is not necessarily accepted, but since it's been said, why not mention it.

athinaios (talk) 01:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One problem with your expectations might be that you should not be writing for professionals here, in fact, you should not be "writing" original material about the details at all. Personal opinions are inappropriate here because we are "editors" and need references for material that may be verified for opinions. If this is your profession, please quote published materials known to you through research for entries and cite them. Attempts to clarify your thesis so that it is comprehensable to our readers is important... our readers often have no expertise in the area and we need to clarify many things that you seem to consider tedious... We are involved in a cooperative effort yet anyone may edit your entries in an attempt to make the article better. Most editors are well intended. I hope this enables you to be more comfortable with your contributions and the contributions of others. You need to use references to oppose entries that conflict with your own entries -- if they are technical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.196.169.194 (talk) 19:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments, User:65.196.169.194. Yes, I agree that I need to add references to make this article less shaky. Although I am, as you rightly recognised, a professional in the field of archaeology, Greek sculpture is not my field of expertise. I tend to think one should avoid contributing to wikipedia on topics of one's own academic research, as that would indeed lead to the inclusion of original research. In other words, nothing I wrote here is any way original, most is based on a translation from German and Dutch wikipedia, with a few additions from memory/general knowledge/remembered undergraduate notes. None of it is "my thesis". Mea culpa if I appear to find any of the subject matter tedious, I do take that to heart. And yes, of course editors can change what has been added, but I do hope that such changes are based on knowledge/research/information, and I do have a responsibility to make sure the text does not end up being misleading. Note to self: Next time at library, find some refernces to add here. athinaios (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome -- we all have to give each other room for individual persepectives and sometimes it takes a while to develop a good article through a co-operative efforts and it can provide insights that help one become a better editor along the way.

Under the heading "Ancient examples", the fourth paragraph begins "The two best-known examples, both from the Classical period, are those sculpted by Phidias: the 13-metre-long (43 ft) tall standing statue of Athena Parthenos..." (emphases added) Unless the figure happens to have the same height as its length, the apparent disagreement between whether the dimension is describing the length or the height needs to be resolved. Bricology (talk) 21:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done - it was the idiot who added the conversion template. Johnbod (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]