Wikipedia:Peer review/Corleck Head/archive1

Corleck Head

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A haunting piece of stone sculpture thought to have been created only a few hundred-odd years before written Irish history, yet it seems endlessly ancient and enigmatic. Hoping to get this to FAC in a few months, but help is needed; gaps in coverage, paddyisims, spelling and stuff.

Article is a recently passed GA, and am working on sister articles, and gathering sources for a parent – Celtic stone idols. Ceoil (talk) 03:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

Good to see this one up here -- I had noticed it around GA and I'm glad it's finally been promoted!

to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Each face has a similarly enigmatic expression, closely set eyes, a broad, flat nose, and a simply drawn mouth. Although its origin cannot be known for certain, its dating to the Early Iron Age: unless Irish chronology works very differently to what I'm used to, that's not the early Iron Age -- that generally caps out about 500 BCE.
similar iconography from contemporary northern European Celtic artefacts: I think we need to be a little careful on the phrasing here, particularly contemporary. What we mean, I think, is that we've got secure dates for those artefacts to the C1st-C2nd, and that they look like the Corleck Head, so we assume that they're contemporary with it. The current phrasing implies that they're definitely contemporary with the head, which puts the cart before the horse.

Who knows when any pre-historic sculpture was produced, except from its iconography and deduced influences. I might swap "contemporary" with "earlier" as they are obviously predecessors rather than influenced by. Ceoil (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The head was found c. 1855: Personally, I'm not a fan of abbreviations in flowing text. I can wear "dated to c. 2500 BC", but would advise "found around 1855", "in approximately 1855", or something more prosey for the first.
The archaeological evidence indicates that it was used for ceremonial purposes at Corleck Hill: I might be missing it, but I don't actually see any evidence of this offered in the article (plus, it's a well-known and only half-joking refrain that "ritual" is archaeologist-speak for "I have no idea").
I need to do an article on the Hill, which has a fascinating archaeology history throwing up stuff from the Neolitic to the early modern era. Editing on my phone rn, but hang on a few days. Ceoil (talk) 15:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As with any stone artefact, its dating and cultural significance are difficult to establish: this is a bit loose -- yes, there are good dating techniques for other artefact classes that don't work on stone, but it isn't inherently more difficult to establish something's cultural significance because it's made of granite rather than gold, and we also have lots of other perfectly good dating techniques (stratigraphy, most obviously) which do work, and indeed were just about our only options for anything before about the 1950s.
How come the Corleck Head gets two capitals but the Corraghy head gets one? I'm not sure we need to resolve that between the two articles, but we should be consistent within the one.
There are two Corraghy Heads. Agree and have done a page move. Ceoil (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
association with human sacrifice, traditions the early Christian church suppressed: as phrased, this is a bit misleading -- nobody was doing any human sacrifice in the EMA for the Christian church to be suppressing, though you're right that they would have taken a rather dim view of artefacts seen to be associated with it.
Well spotted; will adjust claim accordingly. Ceoil (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It came to national attention: good practice is not to use a pronoun (it) whose antecedent is in a different paragraph -- instead, repeat the head or similar.
When found it was a local curiosity placed on top of a farm gatepost: being pedantic, this only happened after it was found. When found, it was in the dirt, and nobody had ever heard of it.
It is listed as number 11 in the 2011 Irish Times anthology A History of Ireland in 100 Objects.: MOS:LEAD would like this in the body somewhere (can we have a section about its reception, legacy and modern treatment?) Is the number particularly significant -- we imply here that it makes it somehow the 11th most important, but I suspect they're simply arranged in chronological order?
Can we do a multiple image that shows the different faces of the head as you move around? I'm struggling from the existing pictures to get a sense of what it actually looks like in the round, or to tell what's a new face versus something I've seen before.
I have a bunch of pics on my phone; will upload to commons and maybe do a gallery rather than left-right placement within text. Ceoil (talk)
I'm getting quite a strong MOS:SANDWICH, on Vector 22, between the two head thumbnails.

More to come. I'm afraid this is going to be quite nit-picky, as I've got an archaeological background (though not in this particular field), but I hope it's useful -- please do tell me when I'm being over-pedantic or have just missed the point. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

nick picky works for me, thanks a bunch for looking. Will get to shortly Ceoil (talk) 11:53, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]