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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family tree of the Egyptian gods

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was DELETE. postdlf (talk) 16:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Family tree of the Egyptian gods

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Family tree of the Egyptian gods (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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There are major inaccuracies in this genealogy, but they are only symptoms of a greater problem: that the relationships between Egyptian deities were too numerous and too changeable to attempt to represent in a single chart. Just to name a few examples: at least four gods are called the father of Anubis, and four goddesses called his mother;[1] in different sources Horus' mother may be Hathor, Nut, or Isis, and his father may be Geb or Osiris—not to mention that the child form of Horus may be the son of many more deities, including the adult form of Horus;[2] the creation of the world was variously credited to Nun, Neith, Khnum, Atum, Ptah, Amun, Thoth, or Horus;[3] and Thoth might be the son of Ra or the product of Set's impregnation with Horus' semen.[4] The Egyptologist Erik Hornung put it this way: "It is evidently unnatural for Egyptian gods to be strictly defined. Their being remains a fluid state to which we are not accustomed… The combinations gods form with other gods are in many respects transitory and may be dissolved at any time."[5]

My point is not merely that the Egyptian gods' relationships are absurdly complicated, but that the relationships between gods have symbolic significance.[6] The gods represent forces of nature,[7] whose interactions are complicated and shifting. Describing those interactions is not impossible, but it needs to be done in the text of the gods' individual articles and accompanied by explanation of what each relationship means. I know that Wikipedia likes to lay everything out in a neat list or table or template, but in this case that's not only infeasible, but risks misleading the reader about the very nature of the Egyptian pantheon.

  1. ^ Doxey, Denise M., "Anubis", in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (2001), pp. 97–98
  2. ^ Wilkinson, Richard H., The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (2003), pp. 132, 140; Watterson, Barbara, The Gods of Ancient Egypt (1984), p. 57
  3. ^ Tobin, Vincent Arieh, "Myths: Creation Myths" in Oxford Encyclopedia (2001), pp. 464–468; Dunand, Françoise, and Christiane Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt (2005), p. 63
  4. ^ Wilkinson (2003), p. 215
  5. ^ Hornung, Erik, Conceptions of God in Egypt: The One and the Many (1982), translated by John Baines, p. 99
  6. ^ Wilkinson (2003), p. 74
  7. ^ Allen, James P., Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs (2000), pp. 43–44
A. Parrot (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I say delete here, right? A. Parrot (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There are quite a few problems with the page. For instance, Atum and Toth are often thought of as self-created, so that this family tree does not make sense. In some stories Atum actually created Shu and Tefnut, while here Ra is just given as a "father". And then there are the combinations: Amun-Ra, Re-Harakhty, etc which is ignored. This page gives the impression there is a real family tree, while the real development of AE religion is much more complicated and the roles that the deities had and relations with respect to one another varied over time and geographical location. None of these issues can really be solved by careful editing, so I think not having the page is better than having one that is incomplete/misleading. --AnnekeBart (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it is also in violation of several guidelines? WP:RS - no (reliable) sources are given as a basis of the family tree; WP:VERIFY - related to the WP:RS we cannot verify what the tree is based on.; WP:OR or WP:SYNTH - It looks a bit like original research/synthesis, as I have never seen any family tree like this in the literature.; WP:NPOV and/or WP:UNDUE - given the different myths out there, someone seems to have picked their favorite one and presented that one without offering any explanation of the alternative versions. --AnnekeBart (talk) 03:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I didn't create this family tree, but merely turned it from a template into an article. The reasons given above in support of its deletion are perfectly valid. --BomBom (talk) 10:02, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I'm sure the original creator meant well, and the illustrations are lovely, but this is pure WP:SYNTHESIS. Egypt did not have one monolithic religion (with the possible exception of the Aten in the Armana period), it was a composite of beliefs that varied by Nome (spatial area) and through time. So the 'family tree' Re->Shu+Tefnut->Geb+Nut->Isis+Osiris+Nephthys+Set is fixed apparently from the earliest. But from equally ancient times we have Re-Herakhte (Horus of the Two Horizons)->Hathor+Sekhmet (the two Eyes of Ra). Then you add in a host of other deities who are not part of this familial structure but originated in separate locations, which were either conflated (eg the conflation of Amun and Re into Amun-Ra), or were described as the spouse or offspring of another deity, whether as an honorary title or to denote some kind of adoption. The only way this tree can be constructed is by adding in all of these local myths separately - the whole construction is not supported by any reliable source that I know of.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:36, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as the nominator points out, this just isn't a good way to present this information by nature. At best it adds little to our coverage of Egyptian mythology, and at worst it's downright misleading. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Respect to the person that tried to do this. I'm abstaining. Even with fluid relationships it should be possible to create some kind of genealogical tree (or multiple trees). Although it looks like it will involve a hundred times more effort than has been put in thus far. Maybe the article should have an introduction about how difficult it is to draw up a single family tree of the Egyptian gods and include the nominator's summary in that rationale.  Nipsonanomhmata  (Talk) 21:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
CommentRespect to everyone but with regard to previous comment - it is not just a complex task it is impossible in this form. Any tree would have to take into account changes in the way the gods were perceived according to time (i.e. which period of history they relate to) and location (i.e. which cult centre is meant). There also has to be an understanding of what the Egyptians actually meant by saying one god was father of another, for instance, especially as any number of gods are called 'father of the gods' e.g. Atum, Ra, Nun, Amen and so on. For this reason I support Delete.Apepch7 (talk) 16:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Concur with Nipsonanomhmata; nice try. However, the complexity of the gods' relations and tales told different ways to serve a political purpose in the religious hierarchy of Egypt are as much a part of the history Egyptian mythology as the images themselves. It is ultimately a disservice to leave them out. Anarchangel (talk) 15:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would be a disservice, but the relationships don't have to be left out of Wikipedia; they can and should be covered in the articles on individual gods, in writing. I don't believe that they are too complicated to convey but that they are too complicated to convey graphically. A. Parrot (talk) 17:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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