This WikiProject, WikiProject Ancient Near East, aims to organize an effort to expand and improve Wikipedia's coverage of the history of the ancient Near East and related topics. This page and its subpages contain suggestions and guidelines to help editors. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page. New members are always welcome; you can join at the recruitment page.

Did you know

• 18 Feb 2024 – Modi'in (ancient city) (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Mariamnei (t · c); see discussion

Categories for discussion

• 15 Feb 2024 – Category:West Semitic goddesses (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Marcocapelle (t · c); see discussion
• 15 Feb 2024 – Category:West Semitic gods (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Marcocapelle (t · c); see discussion
• 15 Feb 2024 – Category:West Semitic deities (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Marcocapelle (t · c); see discussion
• 15 Feb 2024 – Category:Hebrews (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Marcocapelle (t · c); see discussion

Requested moves

• 17 Feb 2024 – Archimedes' screw (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Archimedes screw by GA-RT-22 (t · c); see discussion
• 12 Feb 2024 – Amytis of Babylon (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Amytis of Media by Antiquistik (t · c); see discussion
• 31 Jan 2024 – Pugat (talk · edit · hist) move request to Puġat by פעמי-עליון (t · c) was moved to Puġat (talk · edit · hist) by Asukite (t · c) on 16 Feb 2024; see discussion

Articles to be merged

• 27 Jan 2024 – Hellenistic Greece (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Hellenistic period by CrafterNova (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be split

• 02 Feb 2024 – Proto-Sinaitic script (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Onceinawhile (t · c); see discussion

Assessment and curation[edit]

If you wish to see the members of the project, or join yourself, please refer to the recruitment page.

Topics and areas in need of improvement[edit]

Members of the project are welcome to add topics, articles or general areas relating to the ancient Near East to the list below if they consider them in need of more attention from the project at large. Please provide a motivation and the date in which you added a topic/article/area if you add to the list.

• The chronology used in articles needs to be standardized to the middle chronology where applicable (or use the most commonly cited dates). Conflicting dates in other chronologies should also be provided, preferrably in a note or something to that effect to avoid clutter. Ichthyovenator (talk) 12:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Tertiary Sources[edit]

• A number of the early/prominent ANE articles were largely cribbed from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. We have been weeding that out over the years but there are still a few articles that are heavily infested. To my knowledge the main offenders are Babylon, Ur, Nippur, and Lagash, though there may be non-site articles equally problematic that I am unaware of. If someone felt inspired a good task would be to rewrite/reref the bad parts of one.Ploversegg (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• We are starting to see the overuse of Tertiary Sources like "World History Encyclopedia" and "Encyclopedia Iranica". Tertiary Sources should always be a last resort. They are third hand information. Always strive for primary or even secondary sources first.Ploversegg (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oriental Institute links[edit]

It appears that when the Oriental Institute recently changed its name (I know) their web site changeover broke some OI paper links. Some are ok, some are not. Oriental Institute Publication series appears to be all bad while Oriental Institute Communications work. I actually powered up and emailed them. Consider this a heads up about possible broken links and maybe having to do a ugly link fixing thing, hopefully not. Bonus - if you go to the new doc location [1] the download there just wedges.Ploversegg (talk) 17:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Unlocated cities[edit]

It amused me to refresh all the notable "lost cities" articles I could remember so I did Akkad, Akshak, Kesh, Ekallatum, Irisaĝrig, Kazallu, Diniktum, Hamazi, Lagaba, Rapiqum, Dūr-Abī-ešuḫ, Tummal, Larak, Opis, and Washukanni. And Simurrum which I'm not 100% sure was a site vs area but since it was destroyed at least 9 times seems notable. And I might as well mention Karkar and Enegi which I didn't work on. I feel like I've forgotten a couple though so if this comes to you let me known or feel free. Thanks.Ploversegg (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Article expansion[edit]

If you you are interested in getting an article off the starting blocks, here you can find all our "stub" articles:

Click on "►" below to display subcategories:
Ancient Near East stubs

Vandal fighting[edit]

As with all other projects, articles within the scope of Wikiproject:Ancient Near East experience problems with vandalism of articles (see vandalism and clean up for further information). Here is a quick guide for vandal fighters of this project:

1. Revert edits.
2. Leave a message on the user's talk page. See template messages and warning category for which templates to use.
3. Report persistant vandals to administrator intervention against vandalism.

Templates[edit]

WikiProject[edit]

• ((WikiProject Ancient Near East)) – project banner, to be placed on the talk pages of all relevant articles
• ((User WikiProject Ancient Near East)): – userbox for use on userpages

For use in articles[edit]

• ((Ancient Mesopotamia)) – navbox template on topics relating to ancient Mesopotamia
• ((Ancient Mesopotamian royal titles)) – navbox template for common Mesopotamian royal titles
• ((Ancient Near East)) – timeline of the ancient Near East
• ((Ancient Syria and Mesopotamia)) – chronology of empires and dynasties in ancient Syria and Mesopotamia
• ((Assyrian kings)) – navbox template for the kings of Assyria
• ((Babylonian kings)) – navbox template for the kings of Babylon
• ((History of Anatolia)) – timeline of Anatolian history
• ((Hittite kings)) – navbox template for the kings of the Hittites
• ((Hittite tree)) – family tree of the Hittites during the New Kingdom
• ((Near East Neolithic)) – timeline of the Neolithic in the ancient Near East
• ((Rulers of the Ancient Near East)) – chronology of empires and rulers in the ancient Near East
• ((Sumerian King List)) – navbox template version of the Sumerian King List

Categories[edit]

Category:Ancient Near East

• Category:Ancient Egypt --> Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt
  • Category:Dynasties of Ancient Egypt
  • Category:Egyptian mythology
  • Category:Ancient Egyptians
• Category:Mesopotamia
  • Category:Sumer
  • Category:Sumerian mythology
  • Category:Babylonia
  • Category:Assyria
• Category:Levant
• Category:Anatolia
  • Category:Hittite Empire
  • Category:Hittite kings
• Category:Crete
• Category:Cyprus

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology
• Wikipedia:WikiProject History
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Middle Eastern military history task force
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Assyria
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Iraq
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Iran
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Writing_systems – collaborate for questions on cuneiform and hieroglyphic transliterations