Talk:Investiture of Zimri-Lim

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A fact from Investiture of Zimri-Lim appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 October 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 18th-century BC fresco the Investiture of Zimrilim (pictured) depicts the king of ancient Mari receiving the symbols of rule from the goddess Ishtar?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/October.

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Problems

The information all seems fine, at first pass. It's the expression that's problematic. You need to be clear about what a "paragraph" is. The content of a paragraph ought to be about one subject that relates directly to your lead sentence.

Three rectangular parts make up the composition of the painting. This is your lead sentence. So what follows should state how the three rectangular parts are arranged.
Your next sentence says: The scene depicted in the large rectangular frame is strictly symmetrical...... OK! I look at the picture and I see two rectangular frames. But the scenes inside them are not symmetrical. Oh! You are not referring to these scenes. You are in fact referring to the whole work which is made up of several scenes. You haven't mentioned a "rectangular frame" before, but now you talk about the "scene in the frame".

So delete this sentence completely. Go bak to your first sentences and now write something that follows on from it in a way that describes the whole work. You can't refer to something made of several scenes as a "scene"; use the words "work" or "mural".

So now from here we should have a description that tells us that the mural has three vertical sections, which are arranged symmetrically, with the two outer sections framing the central one. You can also mention here that each vertical section is subdivided horizontally.
New paragraph. Decide whether you are going to deal with the main subject first, or the framing sections first. I would go with the centre because it depicts the palace, and what goes on.
New paragraph. Now the other part.
Read what you have read very carefully. Notice that as it stands you have two adjoining sentences in which one begins: "The scene depicted in the large rectangular frame....." and the next sentence begins "The scene depicts a garden of palms and....".

In the first of these sentences you are talking about the whole mural. In the second of these sentences you are talking about the left-hand section only. Nobody could possibly know that, unless they spent as much time looking at the picture and dissecting what you have written as I have. You simply cannot begin two sentences in the same way and mean entirely different things. The message here is READ what you write before you publish. Read it aloud. If you find you have repeated a key word or key phrase, ask yourself why, and whether it is appropriate.

Next, read the sentence about the trees and Goddess. The Goddess appears to be part of one of the trees. How are you going to express that sentences in a way that separates her from the leaves and branches?

Hope this is helpful!

Amandajm (talk) 11:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amanda, thank you for the careful review and pointers. I've tried to follow through with your suggestions and I do think they make the overview read much better and smoother. The paragraph describing the outer panels is still lack though. I can't find a simple way to depict the symmetry between the two panels without being too repetitive. I'm also hindered by the fact that none of the photos I can find on commons show the whole mural (as can be seen here) which makes said symmetry less than obvious from the photo.

Do let me know if it does read better, and if you have any suggestions for that paragraph!

Thanks again, I appreciate the help! Yazan (talk) 15:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This might solved some of the problems.

Don't feel obliged to use it. I traced it and filled in missing bits where they could be deduced, and left gaps where they couldn't. Don't use it at high res, because it's messy. I wasn't sure about the dove-shaped thing. Is it really a dove? What does the Museum say? Amandajm (talk) 04:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Humph! I have just looked at closeups of the lower panel and realise I've got it wrong. Don't use it! I'll fix. Amandajm (talk) 04:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked a user on Commons who is a specialist in the Louvre artefacts if it's possible to get a photo of the whole mural, and she promised to do it by Saturday. So that should make things easier.

As for the dove, the museum website mentions it thus "The warlike aspect of Ishtar with her lion - positioned exactly in the middle of the painting - is counterbalanced by the dove, an attribute of her pacific and loving aspect." Schmandt-Besserat, however, explicitly talks about "doves in flight" in the garden. I think you can discern one such dove easily on the right hand panel on the left corner of the palm tree (in the photo on the museum website).

Thank you for all the help, did you just sketch that yourself? impressive! Yazan (talk) 05:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vase, sickle-sword

Would the "sickle-sword" in fact be a scimitar? And I feel that "urn" might be the more usual word for the vessel water flows out of in a fountain, though I'm by no means sure. Awien (talk) 19:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, did my homework: no, sickle-sword isn't scimitar, and vase and urn appear to be interchangeable even though urn still sounds more natural to me. Awien (talk) 22:40, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]