Talk:Sobekneferu

Sobekneferu has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: September 12, 2021. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Sobekneferu appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 October 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Sobekneferu (bust pictured) of Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty is the earliest undisputed female king to reign over ancient Egypt?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sobekneferu.

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

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The meaning of "Sobeknefru"

Does this name means "the beauty of Sobek" OR "she who shows the beauty of Sobek"?1.Erfolg (talk) 15:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If "Sobek" comes last, it means "the beauty of Sobek" (noun (possessed) + noun (possessor)).^[1] If "neferu" comes last, the name means "Sobek is beautiful" (noun + verb in the stative^[2], also called old perfective^[3]). In the latter case the vowels should be switched around, see my following comment. Hieronymus Illinensis (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to Egyptologist Dominic Perry, it simply translates to "Sobek is beautiful".

Also, shouldn't she be called "king" not "queen"? In Ancient Egypt, a ruler is denoted as king (long before the use of the word pr-aa (pharaoh) to specifically mean the king), regardless of gender. Queen denotes that she would be the wife of a king. JanderVK (talk) 12:44, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Allen, James P. Middle Egyptian. Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 40
^ Allen 2001, p. 208
^ Allen 2001, p. 201

Article title

The vocalization of her name should be "Sebeknofru", as given e.g., by Gardiner,^[1] not "Sobekneferu". The reason is that the predicate was stressed,^[2] so in a name consisting of noun + verb in stative (old perfective), the verb gets the full vowel o,^[3]^[4] and the noun's vowel is reduced to e or a^[5]; for the same reason, Thutmose is more correct than Thothmes.^[6] Sebeknofru's name appears in Greek as Skemiophris^[7], a little distorted but showing the e-o vowel sequence.Hieronymus Illinensis (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Gardiner, Alan H. The Egyptians. The Folio Society, 1999 (posthumously revised from Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford, 1961), pp. 138, 428
^ Allen 2001, p. 74
^ Allen 2001, p. 203
^ Gardiner, Alan H. Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. Oxford, 1957, p. 436
^ Gardiner 1957, p. 436, 437
^ Gardiner 1957, p. 437
^ Gardiner 1999 p. 428

Terminology in the lead paragraph.

I am possibly being over-sensitive, but the phrase "reigned as Pharaoh" in the lead paragraph diminishes the stature of Sobeknefru. I didn't do an exhaustive search, but for several of the male rulers surrounding her reign, they are named as Pharaoh, not "reigned as" or "ruled as". The article on Hatshepsut also states that she was pharaoh. Should this be changed to conform to the pattern of other articles? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catbirdfan (talk • contribs) 18:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sobekneferu/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 17:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting article. Review coming shortly. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The prose is mostly fine for GA (if this were at FAC, I might be more picky here!), but I still have a few suggestions:

"Notably, Sobekneferu adopted the full royal titulary, distinguishing herself from prior female pharaohs." - WP:WTW doesn't like "notably" in WikiVoice, and nor do I – I would suggest "Unlike prior female pharaohs, Sobekneferu adopted the full royal titulary".

Your proposed rephrase is fine, but I wonder if it'd also work just to drop the word 'notably' or rephrase to 'Sobekneferu distinguished herself from prior female pharaohs by adopting the full royal titulary'.
- Looking at the changes you've made, I think just dropping "notably" is fine here. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Though two kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty, Sobekhotep I and Sonbef, are attested to him" this is pretty awkward. I assume that what it must mean is that Sobekhotep and Sonbef are attested as children of Amenemhat IV? "attested to him" is pretty unclear, though.

I meant to write 'attributed', not 'attested' here. It's not clear whether they are actually his sons, the connection between them is in nomen 'ỉmn-m-hꜣt' [Amenemhat]. I don't know if just correcting the error helps.
- This is better, though I think still could be clearer. How about something like: Sobekneferu's accession may have been motivated by a lack of male heir for Amenemhat IV. However, two Thirteenth Dynasty kings, Sobekhotep I and Sonbef, have been identified as possible sons of his based on their shared nomen 'Amenemhat'. As such, Sobekneferu may have usurped the throne after Amenemhat's death, viewing his heirs as illegitimate.?
  - Done.

"Setibhor is suggested to have been a female king regnant". Another phrasing which reads awkwardly to me. I would write "Setibhor may have been a female king regnant".

Done with additional tweaking.

"At the time of her accession": I assume that this is Sobekneferu's accession, but the article has mentioned three other women since it last discussed her, and this is the beginning of a new paragraph so we should be clear who we are talking about here.

Done.

"there is limited evidence of the events during his reign": can we say "little is known of events during his reign"?

Done.

"four granite papyrus columns": papyriform?

Done.

I'm also not sure about "the beautiful Nitocris" in Wikipedia's voice. Even if Nitocris' beauty were relevant to this article, this would be the kind of opinion-based statement that we should be attributing, rather than stating as fact; as it is, I'd cut the extra colour and just say "the kingship of Nitocris", prosaic as that may be.

I meant to put it in quotes, as it's the Greek historians who invented this legendary story of a beautiful woman that got revenge on the murderers of her brother and threw herself into a burning pit so that no-one could exact revenge against her, but without that full context it'd just stick out like a sore thumb, so removed.

Other than these few prose points (and some hopefully uncontroversial minor copyediting in this series of edits), I think this article is well on its way to GA status. Works cited all seem to be reliable enough; spotchecks of a couple of sources found no issues (either of copyvio or misuse of sources). Images are all fine. As an ancient history article, there are the inevitable omissions of things that you would expect to find in a modern biography, but where we just don't know very much the article often explicitly says that, and given the good articles that I write I'm in no position to complain about that! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:44, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I completely forgot to add this page to my watchlist after the notification. So sorry. I've addressed your prose comments, though you'll want to take a second look at the first two points you made. Thanks for the review Caeciliusinhorto. Let me know if you have further suggestions or comments (I've added the page to my watchlist now). Mr rnddude (talk) 06:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested a further tweak to the second point, but I'm happy with the change you made in the lead. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:52, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:11, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just did a final read through. This is one of those articles where it feels like there ought to be more that we can say about the topic, but because of the nature of the sources there just isn't any more that we can cover. So despite my personal wish to know more about Sobekneferu (get on that, Egyptologists!) I think this does meet the GA criteria, and I'm happy to pass it. Congratulations! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:08, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 05:21, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

Photograph of a now lost bust of Sobekneferu

... that Sobekneferu (pictured) of Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty is the earliest undisputed female king to reign over ancient Egypt? Source: Too complex to cite a single source, see para 1 of reign. Toby Wilkinson, 2010, pp. 128–129 would support an even stronger 'was the first' rather than 'earliest confirmed': 'The accession of Egypt's first female king ... was a sure sign that the Twelfth Dynasty had run out of steam'. See also Cooney p. 14: '[Sobekneferu] was the first woman who took the Egyptian kingship as her formal title, ruling alone for about four years'. If that's too bold given the complications regarding potential previous 'queen regnants', particularly Merneith and the probably fictitious Nitocris, then:
- ALT1:... that Sobekneferu (pictured) was one of ancient Egypt's few female kings and the first to adopt the full royal titulary? Source: Cooney, p. 12: 'Once upon a time, there were women who ruled the world. Six of them – Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra ...' ; Robins, p. 108: 'Although kingship was regarded as a male office ... nevertheless a few female rulers are known'. Gillam, p. 301: 'Like some earlier female rulers of Egypt, she probably gained her position through the lack of a viable male heir; unlike the others, however, she assumed the full royal titulary, where her feminine gender was carefully noted'. The bit about 'feminine gender' refers to the use of the hieroglyph for 't' in her titulary. E.g. sꜣt-rꜥ (daughter of re) instead of sꜣ-rꜥ (son of re).

Comment: This image is of the only known bust with her face. It's not the finest, so I can understand if its skipped over for another nom.

Improved to Good Article status by Mr rnddude (talk). Self-nominated at 04:34, 14 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]

A well-written article recently promoted to GA; good work! No copyvio. Both hooks are interesting and referenced in the article (accepting the offline sources in good faith); I prefer the first one. The image is creative commons and has a caption (IMO, I think that it is not a bad image/bust, considering that many pharaohs got it much worse). Only the QPQ is missing. Applodion (talk) 10:14, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Applodion - I am presently exempt from WP:QPQ. See here. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry, I assumed that an experienced editor like you must already have had more than five DYKs. I should have checked. Anyway, in that case, everything is in order. Applodion (talk) 10:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine. I very rarely create articles and haven't gone through GAN in a few years, so haven't had anything to nominate at DYK in a long while. Only reason I thought of nominating this time round was because I figured a notable female subject might be of interest to the readership. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To T:DYK/P1

Disputed material

Unsourced text requiring a citation

The following text was added without a source:

Some of the monuments found in the Nile Delta are thought to be in a secondary context, looted by the Hyksos from the Faiyum region.

I also don't see how this material is relevant to a section on attestations for Sobekneferu. Nor is it clear what monuments are even being referred to. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:56, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With regard my last edit summary. I wrote DE without thinking that it might be interpreted as WP:DE. I meant that as a short form for 'dummy edit'. Just in case that clarification is needed. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:57, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Desired addition to the cylinder seal section

Raven rs what is it that you wanted to extract from the BM's description of the item that you think is missing from the section on en.wiki? Is it the names that are present on the cylinder, because that can be introduced without duplicating the BM's description. The most detailed option would be a transliterated copy of the whole cylinder text. Her praenomen doesn't appear on the seal, but the other names do. Technically this doesn't constitute original research because it's a translation, though I'd still cite the BM website for it anyway. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I took this to the talk page for a reason. I don't have a problem with you editing the article, but no you may not copy-paste material from a copyrighted website on Wikipedia and your revised wording is WP:CLOP. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statue, supposedly, of Sobekneferu

The image to the right was added to the article by an IP on 20 February 2024 claiming that it is a statue of Sobekneferu from the Louvre. The Louvre mentions only that it is a statue of a woman from the late Twelfth through to Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt as here. It does not mention Sobekneferu at all. It was re-added today by another IP under the mistaken impression that it was removed during the dispute between myself and Raven rs. IPs cannot be pinged, so I'm opening this talk page thread to invite either that IP or another editor to offer reliable evidence that the statue has been identified as Sobekneferu. The article currently states that no know statue of Sobekneferu with her head depicted has survives, the only one known previously having been lost in World War II. If this is a statue of Sobekneferu, firstly I'd expect the curators at the Louvre to know that, and secondly there would be an academic source discussing its identification with Sobekneferu. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Allen, James P. Middle Egyptian. Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 40

[2] Allen 2001, p. 208

[3] Allen 2001, p. 201

[4] Gardiner, Alan H. The Egyptians. The Folio Society, 1999 (posthumously revised from Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford, 1961), pp. 138, 428

[5] Allen 2001, p. 74

[6] Allen 2001, p. 203

[7] Gardiner, Alan H. Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. Oxford, 1957, p. 436

[8] Gardiner 1957, p. 436, 437

[9] Gardiner 1957, p. 437

[10] Gardiner 1999 p. 428

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