Talk:Pottery of ancient Greece

message: Can people please refrain from changing the usage of BCE versus BC in this article without discussing or explaining why they do so? Wikipedia policy (see here) demands that articles be internally consistent, but does not favour one convention over the other. It explicitly states that "it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is a substantive reason". 
This article (Pottery of ancient Greece) was started using BC. It is the descendant of one parent article, "Greek Art", now moved to Art in ancient Greece, which used BC. Incidentally, BC is also used in the overwhelming majority of literature on the topic. On those grounds, it should continue to use BC.
So, either leave it as it is, or give a good reason why a change is useful or necessary and await the discussion, or spend your wiki time doing something constructive. Thanks. athinaios (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear. I don't think it is quite that bad. People work on these things piecemeal, so they are careless about which method is appropriate.Botteville (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC versus BCE 

message: this page shoulld have something about where the pottery was from.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.23.185.250 (talk) 03:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  maps and dates 

message: Great opening sentence there guys!
Bitbut (talk) 04:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Clay is not hardy at all..."bulks large"?? This needs a major rewrite. Lithoderm (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What's stopping you?Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 22:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  vase like thing 

message: "The so-called "Memnon pieta", Ancient Greek Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490–480 BC, from Capua. Inscriptions on the left: (ΕΕΝΕΜΕΚΝΕRΙΚΕ (this inscription doesn't make sense), HERMOΓΕΝΕS KALOS ("Hermogenes kalos" - "Hermogenes is fair"). Inscriptions on the right: HEOS ("Eos"), ΔΟRIS EΓRAΦSEN ("Doris Egraphsen" - Do(u)ris painted). Inscription on the right: MEMNON ("Memnon"), KALIAΔES EΠOIESEN ("Kaliades epoiesen" - Kaliades made). Musée du Louvre, G 155."
I mean "(this inscription doesn't make sense)"199.33.32.40 (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Tidied to "meaning unclear" etc. "Kalos" to "beautiful" though "pretty" might be better? Johnbod (talk) 15:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  picture on left of article has possibly unwanted parenthetical? 

message: Most of the former content of this article has been moved to a new Ancient Greek vase painting (that used to redirect here). I must say I'm failing to see any encyclopedic benefit here, and many losses. The old article had hardly a sentence on unpainted Greek pottery, which apart from utilitarian amphorae etc is an obscure subject, if highly useful for archaeology. The bits now left here, like "Rediscovery and scholarship" are just as much about "vase painting" as those taken away.  The new article now has these as big gaps, and here they are oddly stranded. No attempt has been made to fill in for the material removed - the section "Development of vase painting" now consists in its entirety of "Main article: Ancient Greek vase painting" followed by a sentence from the old lead: "The most familiar aspect of ancient Greek pottery is painted vessels of fine quality. There were also many types of unpainted pottery for everyday and kitchen use."  I very much doubt that anything has been done to adjust the hundreds of links that "should" now go to the new article - the only links to there seem to come from templates. 
There might be a case for renaming our article on Greek pottery as "Ancient Greek vase painting", though I think the many redirects (again not updated) worked fine. I can see no case for splitting it pretty randomly. I suggest we return to the old situation. This article gets about 400 views per day, and such drastic action should have been raised here first. Incidentally, the new article, despite ongoing editing by the splitter, only seems to be getting 50 views a day, so there is a drastic drop in getting readers to a page with this information. 
Thoughts from others? Johnbod (talk) 14:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the creation of a new and separate article is fine, so long as it is properly summarized here. One sentence and a main article link is not a proper summary. The section in this article should mention the split article's major stages: protogeometric, geometric, Orientalizing style, black figure, red figure, white ground, plastic vases, and Hellenistic, with links to each of these subjects. Whereas each of these have an entire sub-section devoted to them in Ancient Greek vase painting, in this article here they can have approximately a sentence or two to achieve the same thing. Pericles of AthensTalk 15:14, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: But since there is really nothing here not covered by "vase painting", what is then the point of having this article, which gets all the views? There is only anything left because he has only moved some of the stuff relating to vase painting, not all of it. Other parts (eg manufacture) are just duplicated.  Can you explain what the benefit of the split is, either for the apparently small number of people seeing the new article, or the x10 larger number of people who don't see it? There was no issue with article size. In general only very small %s of people follow links to sub-articles. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally speaking, Wikipedia promotes the splitting of articles, ideally for each section if necessary and if it becomes too unwieldy and large. I think you are right that this entire article itself is not too large or hard to navigate at all, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be separate articles for these subjects, regardless of how many people view this or other articles. That being said, as you can probably now see with my latest edits, I have been attempting to summarize here what has been found in the material moved to the new article. I think that is an ideal solution. Feel free to beef it up even more, since I've only added a paragraph thus far (I'll be citing the Oxford Companion to Archaeology, yet with a few more sources, the section could become roughly half as large as the split article and still warrant the additional article for further information). Pericles of AthensTalk 16:27, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, but I've thought about this for a few days, & I'm clear in my mind that the split brings no benefits at all. The "ideal solution" is what the community had worked out before. It's not true that "Generally speaking, Wikipedia promotes the splitting of articles, ideally for each section if necessary" in the absence of size issues. You talk about "these subjects" but, apart from terracottas, which get only one line here, there is only one subject. It's really a title move by stealth. I think we should see what others have to say, but I'd suggest not devoting much more time to what I hope will be un-needed summarizing. Johnbod (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm....The sections on vase type/function, manufacture, inscriptions, and modern scholarship don't exactly strike me as being one and the same with the styles of Greek vase painting that developed from the Greek Dark Age to the Hellenistic period. Have you sought out User:MisterCake for this discussion? Since he is the one that split the article. Who were the other editors involved here? I've only recently taken an interest in this article, so I'm unaware of anyone else by user name. Pericles of AthensTalk 16:59, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: All that stuff is about painted vases - in fact he copied the inscriptions section over. It seems a very bad idea, and very old-fashioned, to strip out a pure history of style from the wider aspects of the subject, not that that is exactly what he's done. Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

text: Johnbod: if you're going to move most of that material back into this article, that's fine, but I still think it warrants its own article, which can even be expanded to elaborate on the points already made. Also, please retain the information I've just cited from Oakley (2012), since his source is rather useful for covering the basics (with a few details that aren't mentioned at all in the Ancient Greek vase painting article as it stands now). Pericles of AthensTalk 17:09, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I want to see what others think. There should be people along I think. Happy to keep useful additions of course. I've assumed User:MisterCake sees this on his watchlist, as other exchanges have suggested. Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

text: This isn't pursuading me. The longest section now left in the article is "Rediscovery and scholarship". How is this about pottery rather than painting? There really is next to nothing in the article about non-painted pottery; putting ampohrae in the lead pic doesn't change this. I don't follow the end of yr 2nd sentence. We shouldn't be masking drastic changes to highly-viewed articles in case somebody does a project in the future - which seems unlikely. Johnbod (talk) 05:09, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The rediscovery and scholarship bit indeed seems about both pottery and vase painting, so I have left it and thought it should possibly be moved or copied. I wouldn't think for an article to be about pottery-as-such it would have to be about "unpainted pottery". Talking about the differences between a kylix and a kantharos, say, would hardly be about painting, or imply they were unpainted. To me, it seems like saying an article on Greek sculptors rather than painters should only be about works with no paint residue left. I don't see why one interested in vase painting should be directed to pottery anymore than to wall painting. What else is a problem aside from scholars like Furtwaengler or Beazley concerning himself with both pottery and painting (in the former's case, add sculpture too)? Works could be inscribed by either and in different ways. Figurines could of course be painted but it's not like figurine painting is our best example of painting left (as it is with vase painting) and seem to be included in pottery not because of a similarity to vase painting but because they were made of clay. Levigation and so forth is an important part of pottery, not of vase painting. Then again, three-phase firing had much to do with the color, and so that part was copied, though it could probably be trimmed down. No doubt, an article on pottery should also contain talk of unpainted pottery, in silver and etc. Cake (talk) 10:59, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

text: In brief, I think vase painting should be separated from pottery as wall paintings would be from mosaic (if the inscriptions be any guide, see: Stag Hunt Mosaic) if either were to be expanded enough. There was plenty on vase painting for a separate article, so I did it. Cake (talk) 11:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: But apparently people don't need to know anything about the "Rediscovery and scholarship" re vase-painting? And it doesn't matter that only 10% of readers will see the page with the most important aspects of the whole subject of Greek pottery?  I think the positions of thpose commenting so far are unlikely to change, & we should wait to see what others think. Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I said perhaps that section could be copied too. Beazley certainly, say. Turns out I already did that in the background section. As long as pottery links to vase painting (or even has a whole section, like now) I don't much get the complaint of page views. We could move it to pottery in general or something and get more views. Either way I tend to defer to other editors on stuff like this, though. Cake (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: At 48,299 bytes, the pre-split article was far from unwieldy. Its fuller overview of the subject and proper emphasis on the painted decoration seems to better serve the reader. Ewulp (talk) 05:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think unwieldy, but easily large enough to split. If vase painting is pottery, then one might as well direct "painting of ancient greece" here too rather than have an article about mosaics or panel and wall painting proper. Cake (talk) 05:46, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: "Painting of ancient Greece" doesn't redirect anywhere, and if it did it shouldn't redirect to mosaic because a mosaic is not a painting; but a painted piece of pottery is pottery. How does this split benefit the reader? Ewulp (talk) 01:21, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Vase paintings and mosaics are virtually the only paintings we have. A painted piece of pottery is painted. We know a lot more of the Berlin Painter than we do Apelles. The same words distinguish potters and painters from mosaicists and painters! It helps the reader by not having a pottery article constantly qualify that it isn't really about pottery. Hardly different than "mosaics of ancient Greece" being about Apelles, or "paintings of Ancient Greece" talking about slaves setting mosaics and vases. Cake (talk) 06:54, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As Ewulp said, a mosaic is not a painting (it is an arranged collection of tiny embedded pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials). You're also forgetting that we have some Greek tomb frescos that still exist, in both Italy and Greece proper (perhaps elsewhere too where I'm just not remembering them). That being said, I do think the genre of vase painting deserves its own article. Yet I think all or at least most the material that was originally removed should be added back here, and the original points that were made should be highly elaborated in the split article, which should be fleshed out and much larger than it currently stands. I can help with that, since there are a number of sources available on Google books that seem useful (this topic has fortunately been given a great amount of attention in academia, generally speaking). Pericles of AthensTalk 07:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. I've been trying to find my Robin Osborne book. Believe it or not, I do know what a mosaic is. We have zero paintings from Apelles aside from maybe a mosaic. I created the Stag Hunt Mosaic article which I think shows the parallels pretty clearly, i .e. even the language suggests mosaic:wall painting::pot:vase painting though I grant just "ancient greek walls" would be the more literal analogy. The point is the difference in both cases of who to credit for the image rather than the medium. Just look at the navbox for vase painters - few of those were also potters.  I can think of three preserved Greek wall paintings (one at Thermon, Tomb of the Diver, Hades and Persephone at Vergina) and no panel paintings. I really think making a pottery article cover all of vase painting would be as odd as Greek sculpture only being about painted sculpture, and pottery has no right to lay claim on vase painting any more than painting. Sure, if you study ancient Greek pottery, you study vase painting - but the same applies to studying ancient Greek painting. Cake (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

text: I trust there are. Osborne was good for how even in Italy the vase painting styles were Attic. Not sure how I managed to rule out those from the Hellenistic article you added. I guess Hades is such a striking discovery that I forget any from a later date. Lots of color, and the banquet scene is nice for the instruments. Is there anything other than at Thermon on the Greek mainland, rather than in Magna Graecia or Macedonia? More importantly, I would be curious about your vision on how to separate vase painting and pottery. Guess we talk about foreshortening in the Niobid Painter or the Revelers Vase in the vase painting article? Cheers Cake (talk) 12:38, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we stay on-topic in this section? I don't believe that paintings on vases can be separated from their "support" in the way that oil paintings and canvas or wood can. Nor does the main literature approach them in this way. Johnbod (talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope I did to some extent. It seems our experiences differ. While one will learn a lot about pottery while trying to learn about vase painting, one who wishes to study wall or panel painting (I see now the Pitsa panels are a thing) will have a lot easier time reading Beazley than he will digging up the few examples of tombs with frescoes. If you think approaching the issues separately is impossible, that is why I asked Pericles how he would do it. Cake (talk) 18:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

text: Well I've tried to move everything back despite my stubbornness. Could still use some guidelines for sorting the pottery from the vase painting. Cake (talk) 02:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps in the future when that section becomes way too large for this article (after my own additions), then we can make a formal split article with an abundant amount of material. Until then the current length of this article seems fine. Pericles of AthensTalk 08:51, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unhappy with gutting of this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There are a few misunderstandings in this one paragraph of the intro. Don't get me wrong, I like this article a lot and think it is very well written, although perhaps was not so well organized. So, I thought I would follow the lengthier process of marking the errors first without just deleting them. That way the author can fix it rather than me. There is a time limit on that offer, but I do not know what it is. 
The first issue is the meaning of Aegean. Aegean means Aegean, as opposed to mainland. Thus Mycenaean pottery is not Aegean. Also it refers to the pre-Greek civilization on Crete and in the Cyclades (Thera). Those are clearly closely related, which is not captured by separate terms "Minoan" and "Cycladic." None of that applies to anything Greek. But the Late Bronze Age on the mainland and by then on Crete WAS Greek. So, it is ancient Greek and their pottery is ancient Greek pottery. Mycenaean is not Aegean, and is still valid. I'm willing to consider any published alternative view.
Second, saying that ancient Greek pottery proper begins with proto-Geometric contradicts the source in the very first footnote. That organization does not exclude Bronze Age pottery from being ancient Greek pottery. It rattles on cheerfully about Late Helladic, Late Minoan, and so on. There is no distinction between "proper" and what? not proper? ancient Greek pottery. Ancient Greek pottery ought to begin with the pottery of the speakers of ancient Greek. The last I checked that language began in Greece about 2000 BC. Any claim that the pottery "proper" begins with proto-geometric certainly needs some documentation, and if you find any, which I do not think you will, we have to point out that this is only the view of that author. Then we need the other view and at least one supporter of that. I'm convinced that once you look into this you will realize the unsupported statements are wrong.Botteville (talk) 23:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: "Citation needed" in intro

message: I can't really do much for this article until we decide what we want. The main contradiction can be summarized as follows. Are we presenting "Greek pottery AND Aegean pottery", "Greek pottery OR Aegean pottery" or "Greek pottery XOR Aegean pottery?" Running through these logical possibilities are the cases of "Greek Pottery NOT Greek pottery; that is, pottery that is Greek in every sense except the art historical, but may not be considered Greek in that sense, and "Aegean pottery NOT Aegean pottery;" that is, pottery made in other locations in the style of pottery made in the Aegean (strictly speaking, Cycladic). Right now there appear to be contradictions resulting from failure to decide this issue. For example, "IF Greek pottery XOR Aegean pottery, THEN ..." the very first picture, being of amphorae from a bronze-age shipwreck, cannot consistently be there at all. In that point of view also, we cannot cover the topic of submycenaean pottery or stirrup jars being transitional, because there are no transitions. Whatever view we go for, I think the others need to be explained, for balance. 
Other than that I notice some other question marks. Our first paragraph is getting quite famous among the parasites. At least two sellers of pdf's have made it look as though the 1st paragraph appears in some books they are trying to get you to buy. They're not telling you it is from Wikipedia. That whole bit about the pottery being a disproportionate mirror of Greek society is the kind of hypothesis that need a reference. I presume that the one ref given covers it. In order to see it I would have to haul my tired tail down to a library that has the book. Also, the article is somewhat obviously pro-Athenian. Apparently geometric pottery being the hallmark of the Dorians has gone unnoticed.
This is enough revisit for now. More important to get the supporting detail right.Botteville (talk) 14:43, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisit

message: is vociferously defending an external link to deprecated source the WP:DAILYMAIL1, to the point of abusiveness in edit summaries.
I removed the link in [ this edit] with the summary "WP:ELNO, WP:DAILYMAIL1" - that is, it was one of an excess number of external links that didn't satisfy WP:ELNO - at best, as a news article, it would be "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article. Links for future improvement of the page can be placed on the article's talk page." As a deprecated source, it would not be suitable for a featured article.
Johnbod then replaced it with the edit summary: "rvt - find a "better" source then".
This doesn't make sense in terms of the objection - it's a deprecated source, and one of an excess number of external links, that seems to fail WP:ELNO. "Replacing" it seems an incoherent idea.
So I removed it again, challenging its addition under WP:BURDEN: 
It's a prima facie unreliable source - because it's deprecated.
So Johnbod would need to show that it was nevertheless such an important source that it was actually necessary - e.g., under WP:UNDUE.
Given that the Daily Mail has been found in two wide general RFCs to be a deprecated source - , per WP:DAILYMAIL1 - claims of this particular article's necessity as a source would probably need to go to WP:RSN as well, or at the least be flagged there pointing here.
Johnbod, can you justify why this Daily Mail link is such a necessary source that it must be included in this article? Preferably without slipping into personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 20:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: What I've said very clearly in 2 edit summaries is that what is necessary is for you to find a replacement source for this press release write-up rather than just removing the DM. You could have done this in a tenth of the time it it took to write all that - if you still remember how to add material to articles, that is. Johnbod (talk) 23:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: And yet, this makes no sense as a demand - per WP:ELNO alone, let alone per WP:DAILYMAIL1. And you're literally calling it a "press release writeup". How does this not clearly fall afoul of WP:ELNO #1? Please address the concerns - David Gerard (talk) 08:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: And I see another editor concurs on the EL issue - David Gerard (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deprecated source removal