Talk:Isdud

History

@Onceinawhile: This does not seem like a good idea. There was a merge discussion. I think you should reinstate the merge and start a new discussion. Srnec (talk) 15:43, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I should add that what I don't like about it specifically is that the history is now all here, but the historical name is Ashdod, not Isdud. Srnec (talk) 15:44, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Srnec: thanks for opening the discussion. That merge discussion – with very limited participation – was more than 11 years ago. A lot has changed in our project since then, most notably that almost all of the List of towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war now have their own articles – a good illustration of this is that I had to add the coordinates to the table,[1] where almost all other locations already have them because they were taken from the articles. The same is true for the List of archaeological sites in Israel and Palestine.

The only exceptions to the rule are when the modern Israeli town was built directly on top of the ancient site, which is not at all the case here. Here the two sites are entirely separate, 6 km apart. I added some maps to illustrate this very clearly, something the article was previously missing.

As to the detailed history, it follows the site, not the name. Hence Tzippori does not include the history of Sepphoris, which is also a depopulated Palestinian town and archaeological site 6 km away. I could give many other examples of the same.

I would not object to the opening of a deletion discussion, but I would be amazed if there was consensus to delete – today there is reasonably clear consensus for how we treat both archaeological sites and depopulated Palestinian sites in the region, and this is both. A reasonable alternative would be to call this article Tel Ashdod; that would need an assessment of commonname. Explicit consensus on any of this would not be a bad thing. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:45, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

How much of the history here actually belongs at Ashdod-Yam, which is today within Ashdod? In my opinion, the history cannot be split up in this way. The sites are not unconnected. Srnec (talk) 17:18, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Ashdod-Yam has had its own article for 18 years, and effort has been made to delineate over time. That is a complex topic which I have not sought to enter. If someone wants to bring some of the Ashdod-Yam history into Ashdod, I would not object. Personally I think it would be confusing, as whilst Ashdod-Yam is within the municipality of Ashdod, it is on the periphery. It would be like adding the history of the pyramids into the Cairo article, since they are in the Greater Cairo region.

For what it's worth, what we are now doing in two articles (Ashdod / Isdud), our friends at Hebrew Wikipedia do in three - he:איסדוד (Isdud) he:תל אשדוד (Tel Ashdod) and he:אשדוד (Ashdod). I think three is too many, as Isdud and Tel Ashdod are co-located. NB they also have a fourth for Ashdod-Yam.

On the history position, do you agree that the name can be a red-herring? I mentioned Tzippori / Sepphoris, we could equally look at Eilat / Elath or Beit Guvrin / Bayt Jibrin. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

You seem to have moved away from the position you first staked out: As to the detailed history, it follows the site, not the name. Clearly, some of the detailed history here has nothing to do with the site of the village of Isdud and belongs very much to the article on the municipality of Ashdod. As to your question, I don't know what it means. I only know that no Bible translation has "Isdud", so burying the history at that title is bad for readers. A person interested in the biblical Ashdod will go to that article and find nothing about the biblical Ashdod at all. The names are not red herrings if they will confuse readers. This is not the case with your other examples, since Elath is the biblical name and Maresha is a seprate article. The Hebrew WP approach seems betters. Srnec (talk) 00:25, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The intention is to be consistent with project-wide consensus on treatment of such overlapping topics. If you feel too much of the history currently in this article cross-refers to Ashdod-Yam, it should be trimmed down. Equally, I am more than happy for the summary at Ashdod to be increased in size.

Your point about "burying the history" is only a question about the name of this article. One that merits debate. It could be solved by something like what has been done at Chorazin or Bethany, or else Kafr Saba.

Onceinawhile (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Cunard, Llywrch, Greyshark09, Zero0000, Epeefleche, Ynhockey, and Shmuliko: You participated in or closed the merge discussion, so I am making you aware that the merge has been undone. Srnec (talk) 17:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I honestly don't remember the merge discussion. I looked for it, but failed to find it. Is there a link? -- llywrch (talk) 17:58, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

See Talk:Ashdod#Merge_proposal. For the record, I did not take part in that discussion. I only noticed the major recent changes here and at Ashdod through NewArtBot, although I do have a history with Ashdod-Yam. —Srnec (talk) 18:02, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I can confirm that the site considered to be where ancient Ashdod was is where Isdud was and not where Ashdod is now. With different articles it shouldn't be too difficult to separate the history into what is relevant for each place and the small overlap can be in both articles. I don't think that adopting an ancient name automatically grants ownership of the history of the ancient place when it was located somewhere else. Modern Ashdod is a new city that adopted an ancient name, not a continuation of the ancient city. Ashdod-Yam should also remain a separate article. Previously I gave a wishy-washy !vote for merge, now my wishy-washy !vote is for no merge. I'll also mention that even if the ancient history moved to Ashdod, which I don't think is correct except for a summary, Isdud still deserves its own article. Zero^talk 01:23, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there is little use in pandering to and thereby compounding the confusion already caused by modern place names that have simply appropriated the names of older sites without any actual historical or situational continuity - that would simply be furthering the pointed narratives of such naming choices. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

The history of two distinct but related sites—one in what is today Ashdod, the other at Isdud—is all tangled up here in the history section. I just don't see an improvement in moving all this material from a more recognizable name to a less recognziable one. If nobody is concerned with this mash-up here, why be concerned when it was there? Srnec (talk) 21:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I am concerned with untangling anything still tangled (presumably you are referring to Tel Ashdod vs Ashdod-Yam?). This setup is the only way to untangle them. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I am referring to. There is barely anything on the inland site between the Jewish–Roman war and the Ottomans. It's all about the coastal city. Srnec (talk) 00:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Okay, now that I've read the discussion it appears that the prime mover in this discussion was Greyshark09. However, she/he has not been particularly active lately so this matter may be resolved before they have a chance to weigh in. In any case, I merely tried to conclude this discussion & have no strong opinion in this matter, so I'm fine with whatever is decided. Thanks for notifying me about this discussion. -- llywrch (talk) 18:04, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Why was Ashdod built so far away?

An interesting question for us to answer in the article is why modern Ashdod was founded 6km away from Isdud, rather than within/around it. The neighboring large and historical towns of Ashkelon/Majdal or Yavne/Yibna were founded post-war in or around the ruined Palestinian villages.

My guess is that it has something to do with Ashkelon and Yavne being immediately designated for repopulation by the new Israeli government in 1949, whereas modern Ashdod was not created until a decade later.

Onceinawhile (talk) 09:52, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Isdud is far from the sea. Ashdod had a port within a short time. Zero^talk 14:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Serious disambiguation required

I can't help wonder if "Ashdod" would benefit from a central disambiguation page or at least some more comprehensive given the somewhat heinous complexity of the Ashdod, Isdud, Ashdod-Yam setup. I actually arrived at these pages yesterday looking for the page with the relevant information on the ancient city of Ashdod that was a part of the Philistine pentapolis, and I found the route from the current Ashdod page to here is circuitous to say the least, and then - even when one arrives here - it is not immediately apparent that Isdud is the Ashdod of old, since Ashdod is not mentioned prominently as the city's ancient/classical name) - we only have 'Tel Ashdod', the archaeological site name, as an alt name. All of this seems like a serious disservice to any readers interested in the ancient/classical period. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:37, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I've added a hatnote at Ashdod as a first stab at improving the navigational signage for newcomers to the morass of overlapping name confusion here. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:43, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

And since I clearly can't help myself, I've redone the first paragraph here so that the first sentence actually defines the full ancient-through-modern scope. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:54, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Definitely an improvement. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Name of this article

It is absurd to put the entire history of ancient Ashdod, which spanned several millennia, under an article titled "Isdud," which was the name of the site's least significant phase, as a medieval/early modern Arab village. The hatnote added is not enough; those interested in the ancient city probably know it by the name "Ashdod" by which it was known during the Canaanite and Philistine periods, when it was a major city in the region, or by its Hellenistic/Roman names. It's time to change the name. I can suggest "Ashdod (ancient city)" or "Tel Ashdod". Tombah (talk) 06:08, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The term Isdud has only 356 results on Google Scholar, compared with 11,200 for "Ashdod"+ancient. It seems quite obvious that a name change is urgently required. Tombah (talk) 06:12, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

That's a very weak Google-justification. If we were to prefer an ancient name it would be Azotus/Azotos, not the name used almost solely in the bible. And just because scholarly writing (especially by Israelis) tends to ignore over a thousand years of Arab life doesn't mean we should. Zero^talk 07:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Zero, for sharing your political views, but they are irrelevant for the matter (and are also probably wrong). The term Ashdod was, AFAIK, not only used in the Bible but also by the local population (Canaanite and later Philistine) who occupied the ancient metropolis during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The term "Azotus" is nothing but a Hellenized transcription or form of the original, native name. The original semitic term "Ashdod" was used by Semitic speaking locals alongside "Azotus", until it was transformed into the Arabic Isdud. It makes total sense that Isdud attracted much less research compared to ancient Ashdod, as it was a small, marginal village compared to the metropolis Ashdod was in antiquity. The way to move forward here is to check what is the term most common in historical research to refer to this location, and judging from the search results, it is definitely not Isdud. Tombah (talk) 07:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The current title is largely a function of naming conventions. Since the name Ashdod is currently occupied by the modern city's page, the ancient site has been relegated, by virtue of WP:NCDAB, to the naturally disambiguated Isdud. The current arrangement rests on the premise that the modern city, not the ancient city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I'm not sure if that question has been properly hashed out. I think an arrangement such as that at Caesarea would be most appropriate, so here locating the modern city at Ashdod, Israel - given that we not only have Ashdod and Isdud, but also Ashdod-Yam. As it stands, it's a somewhat confusing picture to present to uninitiated reader, to say the least, with a yawning scope for confusion between ancient and modern. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:26, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The point about natural disambiguation is a good one. Isdud is to be preferred over "Ashdod (ancient city)" or "Tel Ashdod". Isdud was the name of this place for 1,500 years, longer than any other name, whereas "Tel Ashdod" has been the name for just 50 years. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:30, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

This is not about length of use, but prevalence and frequency in academic literature. Tombah (talk) 08:36, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

All the "Tel-" names fall flat based on general grounds of recognizability. No one, ever, searching for an ancient city is going to type "Tel-[insert random modern transliteration]". Also, the primary subject here is not the archaeological site, it is the ancient city and former settlement. That it is now an archaeological site is secondary information, an addendum. The site is not principally defined by currently being an archaeological site, nor is that from where it derives its notability; it derives its notability from being a very prominent metropolis in antiquity and middle ages. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this, even though I was the one who created Tel Ashkelon. For example, Ebla is not called Tell Mardikh. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:00, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:51, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

"The original semitic term "Ashdod" was used by Semitic speaking locals" - this is an exaggeration of our knowledge. The primary evidence for the Hebrew name is the medieval Masoretic text of the Bible. And anyway, Ashdod is an Anglicization of the Hebrew. We don't know how it was pronounced at the time.

The LXX, Josephus, Ptolemy all say Azotus. Other ancient languages used other variations of Isdud-Esdod-Asdod-Ashdod. It is all basically the same name, so the debate is over the "correct" transliteration into English. The article below may help.

• Cross, Frank Moore; Freedman, David Noel (1964). "The Name of Ashdod". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (175). American Schools of Oriental Research: 48–50. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1355824.

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:27, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

So now it comes down to the question: what is the most common transliteration? Tombah (talk) 08:37, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Moore and Freedman, cited by Once, opine that "Hebrew Ašdod is therefore to be derived from an older Canaanite `atdādu." It remains that Ashdod is the Hebrew variant of the name, known from the bible as I said, while Isdud is the Arabic variant and other older variants are known too. The ancient city, whatever its name, was not Hebrew. On the other hand, it was Arab for about 1300 years and those were the most recent occupied years. Another point to make concerns Tombah's "small, marginal village compared to the metropolis Ashdod". Actually for all of antiquity Ashod/Azotus/Atdudu was never more than a little larger in area than Isdud was pre-1948, and for most of the time it was smaller. Figures from Israel Finkelstein and Lily Singer-Avitz, Ashdod Revisited, Tel Aviv, Volume 28, 2001, 231–259. Zero^talk 09:02, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Making this about size won't be a good idea, especially considering that the site had existed for several millennia. Tiberias is probably larger and more populous than it has ever been, although in 21st century Israel it is of course far less important than it was during the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, when it was the capital of a province, a major cultural, economic and administrative hub, and one of the major cities in the area. The same is true of Ashdod; even if you are right and Arab Isdud was comparable to ancient Ashdod in terms of size, the first one was yet another town in the area, whereas ancient Ashdod is referred to as a major city in Iron Age and Hellenistic sources. Tombah (talk) 11:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The Hellenistic Azotus is a unique name that has some strong scholarly usage, so could potentially be an alternative, but it is arguably also just as obscure as Isdud, so the use case between those two natural alternatives might be rather moot. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

What about "Ashdod (ancient city)"? Tombah (talk) 11:25, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Policy encourages us to use a name that doesn’t need parenthetical disambiguation (i.e. "natural disambiguation"). Onceinawhile (talk) 11:44, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The actually parenthetical phrase that would be used also becomes a little thorny here - it was an ancient city, sure, but it also continued as an inhabited settlement through into modernity, so that doesn't really fit the whole bill. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:55, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

...why not just make this the History of Ashdod page, at that point? It'd still work. Emolu (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

That would cause confusion with the modern city located in a different place which borrowed the name from this place. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually I think that is a great idea. The modern city of Ashdod is an always-expanding urban center located just a 2-3 kilometers to the northwest, so the confusion you're speaking about is a non-issue. It didn't stop the founders of Ashdod-Yam, Azotos Paralios, which was built a few kilometers to the east, either. They were totally okay with using the same name for a town located 5 kilometers to the west.Tombah (talk) 07:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Natural disambiguation is only permissible if the term is at least recognizable, but I don't think Isdud is. Perhaps we need a page split. Srnec (talk) 21:09, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

See the discussion at Talk:Beit She'arim (Roman-era Jewish village)#Double Articles on Wikipedia from a couple of years ago. It would be good to reach a central consensus on this, and then memorialize it somewhere like at WP:IPCOLL. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:45, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The issue of double articles is much bigger than Israel/Palestine. (See Kaliningrad/Königsberg or Constantinople/Istanbul or Mexico City/Tenochtitlan. There was a recent AFD and a merge proposal for Königsberg. Both failed. A recent RM for Constantinople also failed.) Srnec (talk) 22:58, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

There is only 10kB of readable prose, so it's not a split-rich environment, but hypothetically speaking, where would you split it? The Azotus period of the former city is as distinct from the Iron Age material as Isdud is from Azotus. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Great, I agree with that logic. If we finally accept that each of those phases is unique from the others, we can also view modern Ashdod as a continuation of this discontinuation of similarly named settlements at the site, each replacing its predecessor. Modern Ashdod is as distinct as the Arab town of Isdud is from Hellenistic Azotus and Azotus-on-the-sea and as both are distinct from Philistine Ashdod before it was almost emptied by the Egyptians or Canaanite Ashdod before it was destroyed by the invading Sea Peoples. Having said that, all of those locations were stacked upon one another or close by, and they had a common name, forming a chain of cities, villages and towns that spanned several centuries and can be seen collectively as different phases of the same settlement, best known in contemporary academic literature as Ashdod, after its Iron Age and contemporary phases. For that reason, I think User:Emolu's proposal, History of Ashdod, is perfect. Otherwise, we'll need to create various articles for each, because again, I don't think an article named "Isdud" is the natural place for finding information on Philistine era Ashdod or Hellenistic Azotus.Tombah (talk) 07:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

We need an article on Isdud. Whether the ancient history of that spot on the map goes into that article or a separate article, I don't mind. Zero^talk 09:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

That's not exactly what I was saying, and I certainly wasn't advocating the blurring of ancient ašdūd/Azotus and modern Ashdod. The modern city remains little more than a namesake of the former (in a different location, transposed over a Palestinian village, as I'm sure you comprehend), whereas the periods that I was referring to as distinct still all refer to a co-located series of settlements. The history here is only relevant to the modern city in the sense of etymology. On the topic of ašdūd itself, the history actually remains rather threadbare, with a mere scattering of chronicled mentions prior to the Hellenistic period. Classical antiquity is the then rather more substantiated period of the history, due to the abundance of scholarship at the time, though you wouldn't be able to tell it from the current balance of sources. Perhaps there is enough material on Azotus for a standalone child article, but someone would need to actually put the time in to generate that, otherwise it's rather moot. As it stands, much the history remains little more than a very general outline, but ultimately "Isdud" is, or at least was what actually remained of "ʾašdūd", and there are no two ways about it. Even the name "Isdud" is obviously little removed from "ʾašdūd" - it's the barest twitch of phonetic drift - which really tells you how little actually changed in terms of the local nomenclature of the site over the millenia. Really what we need for starters is an actual names section. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

In addition to the paper of Cross and Friedman cited above, here are some more sources about the ancient name: Astour, Richy, Huehnergard, Shai, Na'aman (pages 157-163, suggests identity with Tianna). Quite a lot of unresolved disagreement is evident. Zero^talk 12:18, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I've... just noticed something. The lede itself says "The collective remains at the location are officially known as Tel Ashdod and designated as an archaeological site." That should be more than enough to justify a rename to Tel Ashdod, especially considering it's an explicit title granted to the collective of settlement remains at the site. Emolu (talk) 16:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's a good idea. Professional, common in contemporary usage, and you said, can be used to refer to the site's full history all at once. Tombah (talk) 17:35, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Every archaeological site entails its location's collective history: that's obvious and a fairly moot point with respect to the name of the location itself, which should reflect what the location is actually most notable as, which for well known historical places is never going to be simply as an "archaeological site", which is just an administrative designation. E.g. Petra is known as Petra, not the "Petra Archaeological Park". For anonymous iron age remains, being an archaeological site or park might be the most notable thing about it; here it is the ancient history/former settlement, not the archaeological site. The history of the city and settlement was well known from sources long before a single side spade touched the earth; the archaeology at the location is a mere addendum. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:15, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Ngrams says that Isdud is more common. Official names are not the driver, which is why our article Turkey is not named Turkiyë. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I would say that "Isdud" and "Tel Ashdod" do not refer to the same thing, regardless of whether they are in the same place. I remain most concerned that by removing (most of) the history associated with the name Ashdod to this page we've also removed it from view. The pageviews of the two pages are not comparable. Srnec (talk) 03:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

There are several reasonable but competing points of view here. I think they won't be resolved until there are separate articles. Zero^talk 13:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

There is a separate, parallel discussion to be had about whether the modern city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Ashdod", or whether the base name would be best occupied by the disambiguation page, with the modern city at Ashdod, Israel. Taking readers not definitively looking for Ashdod, Israel (by means of clicking on it in the search autofill or organic search) to a disambiguation page would help by first ascertaining whether their interest is ancient history or modern geography before they make their page selection. Most extant literature notably predates the 1956 founding of the modern city, which the hits after that date then presumably divided between competing usage. On Google scholar, raw hits for Ashdod reach about 23,300, but this falls to 11,000 if you exclude the telltale signs of archaeological papers in the instance, i.e. "tel" and "yam", while you get slightly more than 12,000 hits if you steer the search towards history/archaeology by requiring "tel" to be referenced. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:47, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree – Srnec's concern should initially be addressed by disambiguating the term "Ashdod". If that doesn’t address the page views coming towards the historical site, then we can look at other solutions. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Naming discussion continued

• Comment: So the attempt to disambiguate Ashdod didn't go anywhere. Regardless, that still leaves the open question of the best name for this page. I'm leaning towards the idea that Ashdod (ancient city) might be the best option, in spite of the preference of WP:NCDAB for natural disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation. This is because the next best option for the ancient city's name is "Azotus", but this doesn't really sound like or resemble any of the other names, which proceed along a fairly clear an consistent phonetic path, i.e.: Sdud, Asdudu, Ashdod, Esdud, which makes "Azotus" just feels like it would drag the page too far away from the generally prevailing nomenclature for the subject. Thoughts? Iskandar323 (talk) 08:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion petered out but I don't think it went nowhere. Disambiguation was the option most supported, wasn't it? Let's just do it. Zero^talk 11:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Just do what? The parenthetical Ashdod (ancient city)? Iskandar323 (talk) 11:12, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

A dab page "Ashdod" that points to the modern city, the ancient city, and the Palestinian village. Zero^talk 12:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

But a basic dab page already exists at Ashdod (disambiguation)? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:44, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, then a further split into Isdud (named as such) and Tel Isdud (probably called Ashdod (ancient city) or similar). The Palestinian village is notable in its own right and its commonname, indeed its only name, is Isdud. Zero^talk 13:48, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Hypothetically, where would the split go? Pre-modern Vs modern? Eg: start of the Ottoman period? Iskandar323 (talk) 14:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I thought our base assumption across all the geographical places in the region is that if the location is exactly the same AND the historical identification is certain, we try to keep it to one article. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Since not only is there any evidence of significant discontinuity, and the name has barely even changed (Asdudu -> Esdud), a historical split would have a degree of artificiality to it. However, if engendered in the child article manner, I think it could possibly work. There could conceivably be a child article on Isdud alone at present, i.e., a split out of the purely modern history of the Palestinian village, from Ottoman times through to present, with a summary here. The current "Ancient Levantine city and Palestinian village" is a mouthful: the whole/part might be better described separately. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment: I've split off the ancient history again, effectively as a parent of this page, as it seems to make for two cleaner pages on the ancient Levantine city / modern Palestinian village. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

290 Jews? In Isdud? Really?

"In 1945, it had a population of 4,620 Arabs and 290 Jews"

290 Jews are not just a few police auxiliaries, merchants or whatever among the large Arab population. What newly-established Jewish settlement (est. between 1922-1945) was counted by the Brits as part of Isdud and has been left out from this article? The 290 Jews are mentioned in the lead and at least once more in the article, w/o making much sense in the Arab-focused context. Arminden (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Location

"According to Khalidi (1992), the site of Isdud is now covered in sand dunes."

Just looking at current aerials, with the ruins of the old mosque as a guide, it looks like a good chunk of the old site (the north end in particular) has been developed over with industrial park. The part around the old mosque is vacant, but clearly east of the sand dunes. Criticalthinker (talk) 04:02, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Criticalthinker: I overlayed a 1:2500 block plan from 1946 onto a 2023 aerial image (which looks the same as the Google one) and all of the area labeled "built on" lies within the open ground. Only a small piece of the top corner of what is called the "village development" area (incidentally a part marked "sand") lies in the current visible industrial development.) I'm not sure how to distinguish sand dunes in the image; it could depend on how much rain there was recently. Zero^talk 08:50, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I mean, on both old and current maps, the edge of the dunes is pretty clear. I guess my point is that it's probably I'm not sure I agree with the phrase "is now covered in sand dunes." It looks like it was either demolished or covered over in soil/earth and the dunes are clearly to the east of the old town. If the mosque ruins present are the ones on the old maps, this old town is not under sand dunes. Criticalthinker (talk) 13:30, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Criticalthinker: The ruins visible in recent aerial photos are indeed the old mosque. I looked up the source (Khalidi) and found no mention of sand at all, so you made a good call. I'll replace it by what Khalidi actually says. Zero^talk 08:24, 11 May 2024 (UTC)