Ancient Near East Template‑class

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I think the term "Mideastern" in the heading needs to be replaced. This US abbreviation remains extremely unfamiliar in Britain - worse still, it's liable to be associated with the US term Midwestern and erroneously thought to mean Appalachian.

I agree that "Middle Eastern" is long and vague. Furthermore, the article Near East makes the observation that "Near Eastern" is the standard scholarly term used by archaeologists and historians. I therefore suggest that the heading on this template be altered to "Near Eastern".

To pre-empt the issue coming up, I don't think "Near Eastern" needs to be qualified by "ancient" - the term is practically obsolete in "modern" and "mediaeval" senses.

A435(m) 15:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Go ahead and move it.

Near Eastern is preferable to Middle Eastern, but we also don't want dozens of unrelated mythologies and religions to build up here.

I think we need a more specific name. Any suggestions?  - C. dentata 22:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I didn't see this discussion, but I changed the term to west Asian (link to Southwest Asia). Mideastern, Near Eastern, and Middle Eastern are all socio-political terms invented in the last century and do not accurately describe the region we are listing the deities for (the Levant and Mesopotamia). Note that while Levant is also a more recent term, it is mainly geographical in nature, not sociopolitical. I'm actually going to change the header to Southwest Asia (from West Asia), since it's more accurate and common. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 04:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I see this template and Template:Meso myth and I notice significant overlap. I think that there could be a merge. Talk will take place here and at Template talk:Meso myth. Discuss? Harvestdancer 02:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, please, this template has messed-up formatting, i.e. Shalim. Twofistedcoffeedrinker (talk) 02:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think there should be no merge now, the templates in questions have become so large and filled with gods and creatures that a merged template would either require a lot of arguments and pretty obfuscated code to be shrinkwrapped for their local article purposes. Instead consider splitting them up in various templates with a common documentation of usage, so that the code becomes readable. If one wishes a major code regulating template like

((mythology|gods|mesopotamian))

then one can create such smartness templates separately, making them call these shrinkwrapped templates. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 10:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]