Talk:Ascalon/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Ascalon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Lede

@Emolu: please explain your edits here in as much detail as you can. Coming back to the article every few days to force in the same text without discussing it (see WP:BRD) is known as a slow edit war, and is not allowed. Either we discuss and find a form of compromise wording, or we will end up in WP:DR. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: Apologies for the delay – I concede that you were right, and including the "modern" descriptor was confusing, hence I removed it right after I reverted the edit. I feel that, now, it is well worded. Emolu (talk)

@Emolu: thanks for your explanation. There are two issues that still need solving with the current version:

(1) "Tel Ashkelon" is not the most ancient part of what is today named Ashkelon. See [1] and click on #91 (as well as 87,88,92). There are many pre-historic and early Bronze Age sites which are older than Tel Ashkelon.

(2) "Tel Ashkelon" is simply the historic place known as Ashkelon. Modern Ashkelon is a confusing 1950s renaming of the Palestinian town of Al-Majdal, which later expanded to cover ancient Ashkelon (see the maps to the right which might help explain). What this means is that it is not possible to use a normal formulation like "is the historic city centre of Ashkelon" or similar.

I am not sure what the right form of words is to encapsulate this neatly in the opening sentences. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:55, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 20 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Ascalon, per discussion. I see no true opposition to the name "Ascalon", and a consensus for the name. I wasn't thinking and closed at first without clarifying/a rationale... oops. Also, (closed by non-admin page mover) Skarmory (talk • contribs) 23:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

See addendum below. The page should move to the naturally disambiguated name for the ancient city of "Askalon", per WP:NCDAB. This page is about the ancient city of Ascalon, Ashkelon or Askalon, but is currently prevented from occupying either the first two of those by, respectively, the expansive disambiguation page for Ascalon and the modern Israeli city at Ashkelon. While "Tel Ashkelon" is also natural disambiguation, it is longer, more technical and more obscure (and thus less recognizable) than the proposed. Readers cannot be expected to either search for "Tel" or, upon seeing "Tel", deduce that this is an archaeological site and therefore the page about the ancient city, if that is what they are looking for. This is not useful or helpful. A rudimentary Google Scholar search appears to show around 1,500 hits for "Askalon" +ancient city, compared to a few hundred for "Tel Ashkelon", providing a clear indication that the current title and natural disambiguation is a more rarefied one than the proposed. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:18, 20 June 2023 (UTC) Addendum: Upon reflection on the balance of usage and sources, and the discussion below, it feels like the subject here, as the eponymous city of antiquity and the medieval period from which all other uses of the name "Ascalon" are derived, actually does have a clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC claim, and the page should be at Ascalon, with the disambiguation page at Ascalon (disambiguation). Iskandar323 (talk) 08:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Light oppose - I understand your point that numerous, technically distinct, locales have occupied the ancient site, however, Askalon is a decently attested version of the standard English Ashkelon which has no distinct connotation of the ancient city, whereas Tel Ashkelon unambiguously refers to the ancient Iron Age locale. The Google Scholar results likewise do not use Askalon to refer exclusively to the ancient city - to the contrary, almost all of the results you have linked use Askalon to refer to the modern city, despite the mentions of the ancient city therein. On a side note: the usage of Askalon doesn't seem to have clear ancient precedent, the Greek form is only attested to in the late Classical era of antiquity, after the 4th century BC, which leaves out the thousands of years of habitation at Ashkelon that preceded it. Not to mention, there are older forms of the name, cf. Egyptian Isqaluni, Hebrew ʾAšqəlōn, reconstructed Philistine *ʾAšqalōn, or Akkadian Isqaluna. That being said, I concur that there are numerous cases for disambiguation, and so I offer a suggestion: rather than batch renaming, why not separate some of the various phases of inhabitation into their own pages? There is a precedent for this: compare Samaria (ancient city) and Sebastia, Nablus; or Shechem/Tell Balata and Balata village/Nablus. Emolu (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Ascalon is the principle variant of the name used by the ~~Byzantines~~ Greeks/Romans and essentially from that point onwards by Western Christendom until the end of the Crusades at the tail of the High Middle Ages in 1270 CE, and Askalon is just a variant spelling of Ascalon - but Askalon has not been widely re-used as a place name and popular culture reference like Ascalon. In terms of it claim to fame, Ascalon/Askalon is most associated with the medieval city, as reflected in the Battle of Ascalon and Siege of Ascalon of the Crusader period, and this is, in turn, arguably the city's most famous period, as somewhat evidenced by the section on the page. Perhaps it should simply be at Ascalon, and the disambiguation page should move to Ascalon (disambiguation), but that's something of another layer of discussion. The sources for the general usage are things like [2][3][4][5][6] - all of which pertain to the excavation of the ancient city. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:12, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
NB: Having done a bit more reading, and feeling the weighting of the sources, I'm now thinking that a straight move to Ascalon, displacing that disambiguation page to Ascalon (disambiguation) might actually be the best option. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:25, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Ngrams would agree with you. "Ascalon" always refers to the historical site – i.e. the subject of this article – and is good natural disambiguation. Notably even today Ascalon and Ashkelon are roughly equal in frequency, and usually referring to the ancient and modern locations respectively. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:30, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Ascalon was a rather bloated disambiguation page when I began the RM, but in its present trimmed down and streamlined form, it's pretty clear that there is little real competition for the classical/medieval city. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:38, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

"Readers cannot be expected to either search for "Tel" or, upon seeing "Tel", deduce that this is an archaeological site" Why? We have an article on the term tell and an entire category on Category:Tells (archaeology). The name is not unique. Dimadick (talk) 10:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I know a tell is a thing, but whether Ascalon was ever a tell in the classical archaeological sense of a distinctive settlement mound is unclear. It seems like every since archaeological site in Israel is named Tel something regardless of whether or not it is a tell, as if tell just shorthand for 'archaeological site'. Is it actually meant to signify the specific archaeological feature of a tell here? I can't tell. Ascalon was a semi-circular port city that as far as I can tell was never properly buried, but remained always partially visible, notably along the beach. But one way or another, it is a side point. The main point is actual usage and the weighty WP:COMMONNAME case. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Weak support. I'm not a fan of these sorts of distinctions between etymologically indistinguishable and in practice often interchangeable forms, but it is true that "Ascalon" always refers to the historical site and is not used for the modern city. Given the obvious problems with the current title, it seems an improvement. It's also the obvious primary topic. Srnec (talk) 02:22, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Support. Clear common name and primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:59, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Support per my comment above. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Re-ordering sentence

Changing "In 1991 the ruins of a small ceramic tabernacle was found a finely cast bronze statuette..." to "In 1991, in the ruins of a small ceramic tabernacle, there was found a finely cast bronze statuette..." I'm guessing that is what was intended, although that paragraph has no reference to consult. Merriam-Webster's first definition of tabernacle involves a building, but its second definition is for a receptacle. Dgndenver (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Merge with Ashkelon

It's more than logical.

For Palestinian sensitivities, we can keep the relevant part ALSO on a separate Majdal/Askalan page.

I really don't understand this separation. "The conflict" has weird effects on some. Arminden (talk) 18:13, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

They're not the same subject. Ashkelon isn't Ascalon. Ashkelon is a modern city established inland on the former site of Al-Majdal. Ascalon was an ancient city that largely came to ruin in 1270 and whose closest proximate modern parallel of a settlement was Al-Jura until it's depopulation. That the modern city was renamed after the ancient city that it held no claim to be the heir to does not somehow unify the subjects. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. There are dozens of examples of modern cities whose centre is not PRECISELY on top of the ancient one, but keep or adopt the old name. I guess the problem is with the ideology behind it, not with the identification. Human settlement is a matter of context and decision, and then of development, not of hard science and precise, closed drawers.

All settlements in the area of modern Ashkelon were esrablished there for more or less the same reason: location. Access to the sea, road (Via Maris), access to water, agricultural hinterland. Canaanites, Philistines, etc., including Arabs and now Zionist Jews: the location makes the city. Now it's a big one and covers several archaeological and historical sites; means nothing, just size. The Philistine city-state was also much larger than the intra muros port city, and nobody would deny calling its entire territory Ascalon. The same goes for the Fatimid stronghold during the Crusades. But whatever, the I/P game goes on. Arminden (talk) 16:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

The initial modern settlement was called "Migdal" precisely because that was where it was located – at a site a full two miles inland from ancient Ascalon. The subsequent renaming after the ancient coastal city is understandable romantic pageantry, but little more. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Of course. Mind that it goes both ways, I mean this logic will be in the way of equating Tel Aviv with Al-Shaykh Muwannis once you'll consider arguing in support of that. And a million other such issues. Enjoy the struggle. Arminden (talk) 18:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Romantic pageantry means blurry-eyed. I think it was anything but. It was dream big and act pragmatically. A vision yes, but based on plans and sweat. Love it or hate it, even hate it a lot - it's still a different beast from flower-power communes or even Christian-minded utopia on steppe or prairie.

Some Zionist naming went totally wrong, like Kiryat Gat. It's nowhere close to Gath/Tell es-Safi. At Majdal, there was no guessing, it was known where Ascalon had stood. And now it is within the city borders.

The point here is that some wish to stress a connection, and others to deny it. That can't be proven in counting km from the bouleuterion in the archaeological park to the Ashkelon Town Hall. Nor in calculating the habitation gaps in years and ethnicities. This is just fodder for the spin, this way or that.

That's why archaeologists, to stay on the academically safe side, don't give names and count cities instead, not just phases. Once the place is destroyed, they count a new city. People think differently, they live in a different continuum, not in peer-reviewed papers. And that is still far from being romanticism or sight-blurrying pageantry. Arminden (talk) 19:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

To your point on destruction, that is also rather key to the differentiation here given that Ascalon itself was all but erased in 1270, with only traces of later habitation on the same site. If I built out the town of Kumkale until it lapped at the site of Troy and decided that was close enough for it to be the heir to the site of yore, would that be within historical discretion or be ahistorical sleight of hand? Iskandar323 (talk) 19:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

That was exactly not my point. If people in the region had lived with the story of Troy as their own for centuries and had finally managed to build a large modern city a couple of km outside Schliemann's mound, named it Troy, and a few decades later would only need to cycle down the pavement or take the tram to the ruins: of course I'd argue for placing Troy inside the article about their city! With a spin-off page if the archaeology section would end up dwarfing everything else. Of course I'd make sure to write why they can't claim habitation continuity (every nationalist's fix idea), nor call Hector their own grandpa, but that's a different story.

You can always easily find trickier situations. With Ashdod I'd have to think quite hard. There's also the story with tandem cities, as they were common on the coast: Gaza, Azotus and Jamnia each had an inland city and one or even two closely connected ports, at times more independent, at times firmly under the rule of the inland city. But by now, I don't think you'd try to remove Maiuma and Anthedon from the Gaza topic, and if it's been done, I'd try to fix it. Arminden (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to touch on the exceptionalism case, because I think this type of reasoning is untenable. But on the note about tandem cities: yes they were common, and yes they are typically covered separately because they work best as distinct subjects – for instance, Pompeii and Herculaneum is never going to be a single page. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I was wondering too why we need two separate articles. Especially if the ancient site is right there within the modern city (as opposed to, for example, ancient Modi'in, whose real location is unknown). @Arminden, if that's the case, I'm totally up for renaming it. Mariamnei (talk) 17:09, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I was going to stay away, but Mariamne brought me back.

I don't know enough about Pompeii and Herculaneum, had never heard about the latter being the port of the former, so I checked. And it turns out that this case works more as an argument in FAVOUR of my proposal:

Herculaneum was NOT the port of Pompeii. Oplontis and Stabiae were much closer, Surrentum at about the same distance.
Ercolano, one of 2 towns built over Herculaneum, was actually quite recently renamed after the ancient town: it was known as Resina at least between the 10th century (first mention) and modern times, until long after the rediscovery of the ruins beneath it. So yes, not that uncommon a phenomenon.

So there's no valid comparison to be made there. But I know this won't help much, I/P has its way of steaming away over such considerations. Arminden (talk) 21:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps I made a untenable comparison, but such considerations are neither for nor against; they're just food for the discussion, though incidentally, Oplontis and Stabiae are also their own pages. If we can get back to basics, this page exists because it is its own notable topic - a topic that is both historically and geographically extremely distinct from the namesake urban conurbation that developed nearby 800 years later and has simply now sprawled over the decades up to its periphery. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

And even were the topics contiguous, which it seems quite obvious they are not, it would still not preclude having separate articles based on standalone notability, as well as size and split considerations. Londinium is its own article because it would be ludicrous to clutter the page on modern London with ancient Roman history. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:21, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

That we actually agree on :) In the end it proved to be about semantics, which I didn't notice, mea culpa. I'm all in favour of spin-offs where articles become too large. The fact that at Ashkelon the "History" section has a headtag "Main: Ascalon" is perfectly enough for me. I hope I didn't wake up any sleeping dogs with this remark :) Arminden (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

ASCALON at start of lead, not any variation

Ascalon is the topic here. There's been a long process to reach this solution, good or bad as it might be, so don't just go BOLD and change it.

The name underwent a dozen transformations, many while still a Canaanite city, see the Huehnergard article at JSTOR. Ascalon is the classic, Graeco-Latin generic form that is being used in literature. Enough of this national activism when the topic isn't politics. Soon some will start going around replacing Latin from botanics, zoology and anatomy, 'cause it's settler-colonial. Rather than learn it. Arminden (talk) 16:30, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I see it was done by an infantile troll with vague traces of literacy. So it doesn't concern the serious editors. Fixed. Arminden (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Merge Ashkelon National Park into this article

The Ashkelon National Park and the Ascalon articles refer to virtually the same place. In that case, I think the former should be merged into this article. There is no information about the park there, only historical information. Whether we add information about the park, it should be a section in this article. And an honorable mention in the lead for the national park and its name in bold is warranted. This is an article, first and foremost, about a place. And that's a place that people visit. And I think one of the common people thing people do when they visit a place, is to search on it in Wikipedia. Bolter21 (talk to me) 07:54, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Strongly support. We have two chaotic articles dealing with the exact same topic. Zero reason to have it split like this. The historical city ("Ascalon" if you wish) is the topic, the park just a footnote. Arminden (talk) 14:17, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This pdf from the park management is quite good. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: A national park is an administrative unit and has a different scope from the subject of an ancient city, even if the ruins of said city fall within the park. The national park article should be on the park in its capacity as an administrative unit and tourist attraction. The history article should be a history article. The proposed merger also has numerous problematic template and category ramifications, not least that national parks are categorised in their own way, there are navigation templates specific to national parks, and they use the protected area infobox template. Iskandar323 (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)