# Talk:Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents

The statement that "over a hundred Bactrian documents emerged, in the bazaar of Peshawar and other sources" seems to be a circumlocution for the fact these unprovenanced documents were clandestinely excavated without official permission. The Khalili Archive is mentioned in the book chapter "Consensual Relations? Academic Involvement in the Illegal Trade in Ancient Manuscripts" by Neil Brodie, p.43. I think this origin should be mentioned in the article, ideally in the lead section, as it is for the similarly important, but also unprovenanced, Schøyen Collection. Lt1896 (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 08:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC) 

Hey MartinPoulter, so we meet again, hope you are doing well. I was wondering; the lede states that the documents are dated between 353 BC to 324 BC, during the reigns of Artaxerxes III and Artaxerxes IV. However, as far as I can see, the body of the article adds to that that documents from Darius III's reign are also included. Doesn't that mean that the lede should be changed to "from the reign of Artaxerxes III to Darius III"? Or something along those lines? Please don't hesitate to let me know if I misunderstood something. - LouisAragon (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:LouisAragon I continue to be delighted with what you're doing with the Khalili content. This is well-spotted, and teaches me for mindlessly copying what's in the text. I don't have the book near me now but I will take a look and something will have to be fixed. I may have made a statement about the whole collection which only applies to the documents and not the tally-sticks. Cheers, MartinPoulter (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
User:LouisAragon Thanks again for spotting this. I had misinterpreted a bit of the book, and I've now corrected the body text and lead to clarify. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:33, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
@MartinPoulter: Glad I was able to help. Keep up the amazing work! Please don't hesitate to let me know if there are additional matters that I could help with in relation to the Khalili Collections. - LouisAragon (talk) 23:51, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Ganesha811 (talk · contribs) 19:00, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I'm opening a Good Article Nomination review. Hoping to complete the review over the next couple of days. I'll be using the template below. Ganesha811 (talk) 19:00, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this review Ganesha811. At the top of the References section is an attribution template which links to https://www.nasserdkhalili.com/the-eight-collections-2/ . At the foot of that page is a CC-BY-SA 3.0 declaration. That is why I've been able to use some text from that page. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
MartinPoulter, thanks, looks good - and I see the credit down in the article as well. I'll continue with the review. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
MartinPoulter, just wanted to let you know I will be very busy for the next week, but will return to this review immediately afterwards. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:01, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Ganesha811 No problems, thanks for telling me. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:07, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
MartinPoulter, returning to this today. Appreciate your patience. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:48, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Ganesha811 Great to see progress. I've created a Background section as you requested and deleted the text about specific other collections. As to how to describe Khalili himself, you've seen on the article about him that he is notable for collecting art, for philanthropic work, and he has published research and a textbook. I've removed "scholar" if we have to cut down that description, but if we remove "collector" or "philanthropist" that really seems an incomplete description. Note that this is just factual description: there's no opinion expressed about the value of his philanthropic work and whether it makes the world a better place, just that he does it. He's different from a pure "collector" in that he funds public exhibition of the art, funds research in universities, and so on. Hence "collector" on its own might give an incorrect impression.
You don't have to take on faith that the Naveh and Shaked book is credible: it was reviewed in a scholarly journal by someone with no connection to the Khalili organisation (ref 7 in the current version). This ref is used to support that the documents are significant for study, and if the book were promotional rather than scholarly I expect that would have been brought up in that review. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
MartinPoulter, thank you for your edits. I'll keep going through the review. Forgive my general air of suspicion - it's just that my antenna are always up for promotionalism, and never more so than when we are borrowing content directly from a source, as in this article. You also have a (properly declared) conflict of interest as the Wikimedian in residence for this foundation, so I view it as my role to be more skeptical than usual during the review to keep Wikipedia as it should be. Nothing to do with you personally (or Khalili for that matter), just on principle. Ganesha811 (talk) 13:02, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
No problem - nothing personal taken and I hope I'm not coming across as defensive. I'm conscious of my own conflict of interest, and valuing the input of those whose antennae are up for promotionalism (or other problems) is just why I'm putting my work through these review processes. Some choices I've put a lot of thought into and want to defend; others can clearly be improved upon and I'll happily make suggested improvements. Cheers, MartinPoulter (talk) 17:11, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Ok, the one thing left is my suggestion on neutral language - other than that we're all set. Let me know what you think! Ganesha811 (talk) 19:01, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
I've removed the two "considered the most important" clauses as you suggested. Honestly, it's now looking to me like the article needs to be more informative. When I read that this collection is one of eight Khalili Collections collected by Khalili, it's natural to want a bit of context (that can be given in one sentence) about how these collections relate to each other or to other collections in the world. Since the other bits of further information have been ruled out, would you be okay with me adding that the eight collections have a total of 35,000 artefacts? That would give the reader a clearer picture of what's meant by the Khalili Collections, it would allow them to infer that Aramaic Documents is one of the smaller collections, and it's an objective quantity that can be found in multiple sources. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:54, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
MartinPoulter, sure, that sounds fine. I'm going to assume that this addition will not have a negative impact on the article, and say that otherwise, this is ready to pass GA! Congrats to you and anyone else who worked on the article. I'll do the needful now. Ganesha811 (talk) 14:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)