Talk:Greek and Roman Egypt

No title

The above title was added later by Carcharoth 11:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Why didn't you just fix the markup instead of fighting about it? This doesn't show the border because this is a talk page - and I can't fix the article because you two have been fighting over it instead of fixing the thing for all browser widths. Kindly indicate your willingness to stop fighting, get the page unprotected and let me fix the problem. Jamesday 07:28, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ptolomaic Egypt

In 332 BC Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, conquered Egypt, with little resistance from the Persians. He was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. He visited Memphis, and went on pilgrimage to the oracle of Amun at the Oasis of Siwa. The oracle had the good sense to declare him to be the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect which he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria, to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire. Early in 331 BC he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia.

The decline of the Prolemies

jfkrk cejfv ej 'vE IEJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.151.85 (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Reference

Great, but there remains Hippodrome_of_Constantinople. --Jiang | Talk 07:36, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Merging Ptolemaic dynasty in here is a complete mistake. We have nearly-bald lists of rulers for a reason, namely to allow the reader (or the WP editor) to do random access on people without having to wade through pages of purple prose looking for that list. Look at "what links here"; the long list of xrefs should be a hint. Fixing this is not time-critical though, I'll do it tomorrow if I don't hear any convincing reasons not to. Stan 14:36, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well if you're going to restore it you'd better fix it up, because it is missing a Ptolemy somewhere. Cleopatra's son was Ptolemy XV. Adam 12:31, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Later: No, I am wrong. The table doesn't include Ptolemy XV but the numbering down to Ptolemy XIV is correct. For some reason the 1911 EB has them numbered differently. It's very confusing but the article I have written seems to show the currently accepted numbering. Adam

I've protected the page to stop the continued reverting. You might both want to have a look at the three revert rule. Angela. 04:18, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Bah another ridiculous revert war. What's the big deal? Dori | Talk 04:42, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

The comments at User_talk:Jiang#my_photos should tell you something. --Jiang | Talk

The rever war is worse than a bad format (in this case I agree with your format, but I don't think Adam's is horrible). Dori | Talk 05:31, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

This is beyond silly. Layout disagreements are just about the easiest type to resolve. I hate doing this, but if it stops them... Daniel Quinlan 05:11, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

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Vote to last 24 hours. Ends 05.11, 15 December 2003 (UTC)

Vote on layout:

• Adam Carr's version
  • Jamesday (Best of two broken versions but it depends on browser and window width)
• Jiang's version
  • Daniel Quinlan (it does look better in my browser, Mozilla 1.0)
  • Adam Bishop (it at least looks better on whatever IE version this is, on whatever sort of Mac this is)
    • It also looks better on Netscape, now that I am at home. Adam Bishop
  • Jiang (this is how Adam's version looks on my computer: [1], this is how my version looks: [2])
  • Zocky (Looks better in my mozilla firebird)
  • Dori
  • Tuf-Kat
  • VV (Not trying to "take sides"; just better on my browser at all sizes, and in the right place (Ptolemaic))
  • Wik 06:41, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC) (though even Jiang's version fails when I hide the TOC; the picture should be moved even further down)
• Either
  • Angela. They're both fine.

Second vote on behavior classification:

• Wondrous: Jiang
• Adolescent:
• Childish:
• Infantile: Daniel Quinlan
• Bizarre: Angela., Zocky, Adam Bishop

Third, new, vote: What Jamesday did worked to solve the technical problem, lets ignore the poll above and move on to deciding where the Cleopatra image lives in the end (note, vote here replaces your vote above - vote there to say what you like of those options, here to say that you want to disregard that poll result and move on to the poll below now we have a possible technical solution to that question):

• Agree: Jamesday
• Disagree:

Why does Jiang's computer have more rights here than my computer does? Is Jiang Wikipedia Art Director? Have any actual readers complained about the format of this page? Why does Jiang have any interest whatever in this page, other than I wrote most of it and he enjoys annoying me? Just wondering. Adam 05:28, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Can you please post a picture as well. From Jiang's picture and my browser, his version looks better. Dori | Talk 05:33, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

I'd like it if those with dogs in this fight post pictures of both versions as rendered by their systems. Salsa Shark 05:37, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the rule of thumb of no more than 3 reversions by either side in an edit war? (I know it's not a law of Wikipedia, but any edit fight that has more than that many reversions makes the participants look increasingly childish.) And it's all about where to put one jpeg file? Why not make this about something worthwhile, like the Israeli/Palestinian issues of Greco-Roman Egypt, or whether we should use German or Polish names for the cities & bodies of water? Sheesh! -- llywrch 06:17, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Obviously we should use the Coptic names of rivers, and I'll revert you if you say otherwise :) Adam Bishop 06:20, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not that I know much about ancient Egypt, but I know that use of Coptic names is deeply offensive. It is a matter of honour to change all Coptic names to Sarmatian ones. Zocky 06:26, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment here; there are much better things to rage about. For instance, isn't "The early Ptolemies were wiser rulers than the Persians had been" a little POV? -- VV 06:32, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It may come as a surprise to non-historians, but historians are allowed to have points of view, even when writing in encyclopaedias. It would be almost impossible to write intelligible history withour expressing points of view. It is the historian's job to interpret historical evidence, and this always entails forming a point of view. Thus the statement that "James II was a bad king" is the settled opinion of 300 years of historiography, and will remain so until someone challenges it with new evidence. Having said that, the statement about the Ptolemies and the Persians is one of the few survivals in this article from the 1911 EB text on which this article was based, and could probably be removed - when the article is unprotected. It's good to see so many people taking an interest in ancient history all of a sudden. :) Adam 06:48, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Weren't the Persians generally pretty bad at maintaining an empire? (Of course, I say this after reading Herodotus for a few months...) Adam Bishop 06:51, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

They certainly had no clue how to govern Egypt, something the Ptolemies were much better at. Adam 07:17, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Of course this dispute is not really about where this picture goes on this page. It is about Jiang's persistent, indeed obsessive, habit of making frivolous and unnecessary edits to pages other people have written, while making no useful contributions of his own that I am aware of. I am very far from being the only person who finds this very annoying. Adam 06:25, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Chill Adam. Jiang is making useful contributions all the time, and he was just trying to improve the formatting. Don't take everything personal. --Wik 06:41, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Can someone direct me to an article Jiang has written? I might go and do a little copyediting or aesthetic criticism of my own. Adam 06:48, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's standard practice for people to edit other people's pages. No individual owns pages here. It is immaterial whether or not Jiang has written an article. Some of our best editors spend their whole day correcting spelling and grammar. Daniel Quinlan 07:04, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Try Pat Nixon. --Wik 06:52, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

That was copied mostly from the white house website. --Jiang | Talk

And by focusing on the editor, rather than the edit, we get caught up in edit wars & nobody wins. All of us need to realise that, after a couple of iterations of reversions there are two parties at loggerheads & things need to be talked out - or at least we ned to take a break from things.

I'd repeat the usual line about it's a nice day outside, go & enjoy it, &c., but right now where I'm typing it's a typical December day in Oregon, & we're about 40 hours into Just Another Winter Rain Storm. However, the occasional break from the computer always does a body good. -- llywrch 17:24, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If you are against copyeditors and the concept of copyediting, then maybe Wikipedia is not the right project for you. Users are not required to write very long perfect and scholarly prose. Articles are not required to be perfect to begin with - and they are not. It's perfectly fine to format, clarify, rearrange, etc. the works of others. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here. Don't complain if other users come along and perfect your work. You are also free to peruse my contributions and find for yourself what I have contributed. --Jiang | Talk 06:56, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have no objectiong to be being copyedited. I am far from being a perfect writer, and very far from being a perfect typist. PMelvilleAustin seems to have dedicated his life to copyediting my articles, and usually to their advantage. What happened here was not copyediting. It was Jiang imposing his opinion about what format looks better than what other format, something he has no obvious qualifications to do. Adam

"Of course this dispute is not really about where this picture goes on this page." Really? Do you think that your version is less hideous on my screen than mine is on yours?

What "qualifications" do you speak of? --Jiang | Talk 07:32, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This seems ridiculously easy to solve - just move the Cleopatra VII picture closer to the bit about Cleopatra herself, which is nearer the end. Of course, now no one can do that, because it's protected :) Adam Bishop 07:44, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. Jamesday 07:50, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have no objections to JamesDay's proposal. Adam 08:11, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

(Incidentally, the real cause of this problem is the fact that as far as I know users have no control over where the Table of Contents appears, or even if they want one at all. Page formatting would be much easier if the TOC could be moved around.) Adam

You can suppress it by including __NOTOC__ anywhere in the article. --Wik 08:13, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

I have removed page protection. It seems like the original version did have a rendering issue for far more people than Jiang's version, but Adam Bishop's idea also seems good, and hopefully will also appeal to Jiang. Daniel Quinlan 08:23, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

It will appeal to Jiang only insofar as it does not emanate from me. Adam 08:52, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Jiang the proposal which was the basis of unprotecting the page was that JamesDay attempt to fix it, not that you do so. You have just gone back to your original proposal, which creates a huge white space at the top right, on my screen. Unless JamesDay suggests his alternative, I will revert your change. Adam 09:03, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You want James Day's version? Fine. Daniel Quinlan endorsed Adam Bishop's proposal and you didn't object. That's why I implemented that one. I don't really care. --Jiang | Talk 09:07, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If you don't care, why have you created all this fuss out of thin air?

Could someone with better coding skills than mine please incorporate JamesDay's proposal into the article? Then we can all go and do something more constructive. Adam 09:18, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Ptolemy I
Ptolemy I, King of Egypt

Here is a better image to have at the head of the article. Try incorporating it where Cleo now is. Adam 09:39, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Did the revised markup work for everyone?

OK, my revised markup for the top position of Cleopatra is in place. Does it work well for everyone, keeping the Egyptian TOC with Cleopatra on the right in one column, with the text and article TOC to the left? Anyone think that this one is worse than either of the two originally being discussed? Jamesday 09:58, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Poll: what next - where does the Cleopatra picture stay?

Next topic: should we keep my revised markup or move the image of Cleopatra to the bit of text describing Cleopatra, where the second copy of the image currently lives? Poll time. Jamesday 09:58, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• Keep Jamesday markup, remove the one lower down where Cleopatra is discussed, leaving her at the top:
• Just have the Egyptian TOC at the upper right and put the Cleopatra image with the Cleopatra text, abandoning the Jamesday markup:
• Keep Jameday markup using Adam Carr's new image at the top and leave Cleopatra image with the Cleopatra text:
  • Jamesday OK, lets see, what do people think of it now instead of this poll? Jamesday 10:36, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't get the above poll, but the current version looks fine. --Menchi (Talk)â 10:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree Adam 10:18, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

St Mark in Egypt

There is no evidence outside the Gospels that Mark was a historical figure at all, let alone that he founded Egyptian Christianity. The belief that he did so rests mainly on Eusebius, who was writing in 325 AD. Even Eusebius does not claim it as a fact: he says

"And they say that this Mark was the first that was sent to Egypt, and that he proclaimed the Gospel which he had written, and first established churches in Alexandria."

Eusebius apparently based his remark on comments in 3rd century writers such as Epiphanius, Jerome and Nicephorus. There was thus obviously a strong tradition that Mark was in Egypt, but no direct evidence. This article therefore cannot state it to be a fact. Adam 05:45, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Adam, would you be wiling to accept winning the war if you concede a few battles?

1.There is no proof in the Gospels that St Mark existed; the Gospel of Mark is an anonymous work, first attributed to Mark by Papias of Hieropolis. Why the Egyptians though Mark founded the bishopric (later patriarchate) of Alexandria is one of those historical questions that has more solutions than evidence; although his corpse was displayed in Alexandria for centuries until the Venetians stole it in the 12th or 13th century.

2.Eusebius died around AD 330, before Epiphanius, Jerome, & especially the Byzantine patriarch Nicephorus wrote any of their important works. I think the borrowing was the other way 'round.

However,

3.You are correct that this is an ancient tradition, not a fact. My edits were to emphasize the lack of evidence for the early history of Christianity in Egypt. Although there are a few more facts I should add (e.g., the oldest text of a Gospel was found in Egypt, & links to Clement & Origen). -- llywrch 21:16, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

shouldn´t we split this article into "Greek Egypt" and "Roman Egypt"?

Hy, I am propossing a split of this article into two articles. The first should deal with the Greek period of Egypt, beginning with Alexander the Great, passing to Ptolemy and ending with Cleopatra or with her son Ptolemy the XVI ?. A good title will have to found, of course perhaps "Greek Egypt" or "Ptolomaic Egypt" or even "Hellenic Egypt". Personnaly, I like the second one best.

The second should deal with the Roman rule of Egypt beginning with the conquest of Octavian and ending with Arab conquest of this country. Allready a article exists called Aegyptus (Roman province), making it only a matter to transfer the revelant paragraphs towards it.

Well this is my proposal. What do you think? Flamarande 12:15, 7 June 2006(UTC)

I agree completely; as a title for the first Greek part, wouldn't Hellenistic Egypt better than Hellenic Egypt?--Aldux 11:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am NOT sure about this, but I have gathered that "Hellenistic" is a mistake, the correct adjective being "Hellenic", like Hellenic people. However, personaly I like the term "Ptolomaic" (it might be written badly) best. There was only one macedon dynasty in Ancient Egypt, the Ptolomeys. Honestly, I don´t know what the commonly used term might be. Flamarande 11:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Hellenistic is a convention, like Byzantine; but to call it wrong would be like to call wrong Byzantine, and the term is sanctioned by past and modern scholarship. That said, I wouldn't see anything wrong in Ptolemaic Egypt.--Aldux 11:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I searched in the links provided in the article about Zahi Hawass, but his page istelf did not diffrenciate over Greek (in reality Macedon) and Roman rule. The entire period is called Graeco-Roman. I am not planning to expend a lot of time in this (busy in other stuff). I proppose that we create an article called Ptolemaic Egypt transfer everything prior to the conquest of Octavian there and then transfer the Roman stuff (some stuff will appear in both of them) to Aegyptus (Roman province). We have also to show both new articles in the box above (box which shows all the diffrent periods). Only when we are finished can we request a "erradication" of this empty article. What do you think? Flamarande 12:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree on your plan, it seems great to me.--Aldux 12:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Hellenistic would refer to the Hellenistic period, Hellenic would refer to the Greek people or possibly their culture. Hellenistic Egypt looks like the one you want. --Nema Fakei 13:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I sincerly believe that Ptolemaic Egypt would the best available choice. Ok, Starting the reform....Flamarande 13:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Hellenistic is idiomatic (although a convention) in English; see W. W. Tarn: Hellenistic civilixation; Ptolemaic might be better (but do we want to exclude A;exander?)> Septentrionalis 21:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments on above splitting of article and creation of redirect

Copied from User talk:Flamarande.

Hi there. I just noticed your reorganisation of History of Greek and Roman Egypt into two separate sections for Greek history and Roman history. Personally I think the article was fine as it was, as it makes sense to treat the periods together (there was actually not that much change at the time of Octavian's conquest, as Egypt had already effectively been within the Roman sphere of influence for some time).

A more troubling problem involves the comment you made at the talk page: "Only when we are finished can we request a "erradication" of this empty article." - I presume because you actually ended up putting a redirect in place, and from your quote marks, that you didn't mean "eradication" - that would lose the page history of everyone who contributed to History of Greek and Roman Egypt, as seen here, which would be an awful thing to happen.

Also, copying and pasting huge chunks of material around Wikipedia is not the right way to do things - it creates problems for those trying to trace the article history. For example, in this edit you only say "tranfering all Greek/Macedon material" - but, and this is crucially important, you fail to say where you are transferring it from. This actually contravenes the GFDL, which is very bad. This is why splitting and merging articles is very complicated and needs to be done with care and with detailed edit summaries. Please take more care over such things.

Another point is that when creating redirects like you have done here, from History of Greek and Roman Egypt to Greco-Roman, you need to use the "What links here" tool to check that all the links that previously point to the "history" article should be pointing to Greco-Roman and not somewhere else entirely! See here for a list of the 110 links pointing to "History of Greek and Roman Egypt". I've checked several, and they need to be redirected to the Greek or Roman history articles, not to "Greco-Roman". This, again, is another reason why splitting or merging mature article needs to be done with a great deal of care. These redirects urgently need fixing, or the redirect changed to somewhere more suitable. In fact, I suggest creating a short summary style article at History of Greek and Roman Egypt, with links to the daughter articles of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman Egypt.

Hope this all helps. Carcharoth 22:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I realy meant eradication, but I later changed my mind. There is a huge fundamental diffrence between Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The first still ruled a full independent Egyptian state and should be rather considered "Macedonic-Egyptians" (something like that) as they quickly adopted Egyptians customs. They were Pharaoes in almost every sense of the word and defended Egyptian interrests. I also agree that that weren't "full" (native) Egyptians, they simply mixed the two cultures. We today think them as "foreigners" in Egypt, but they really are a Egyptian dynasty of foreign origins, and there were also precedents for this (look for the Nubian emperors).

The Roman emperors in the other hand did not live in Egypt and while accepting certain Egptian gods (like Isis) they were really only interrested in taxes and corn for Rome. They largely ignored Egypt and regarded it as a vital province, nothing more and nothing less. If these facts don't lead to a agreement that two articles are the correct way to go I don't know what i can say. As for the another point I am not so guilty as you might believe: if you look at my contributions you will notice that I spent a lot of time linking several articles to the correct Ptolomaic/Roman article. I agree that 110 links bad links are far too much and will correct this in due time. Flamarande 08:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

My point about Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt is that only the rulers changed. From the article itself: "the Roman administration made no change to the Ptolemaic system of government, although Romans replaced Greeks in the highest offices. But Greeks continued to staff most of the administrative offices and Greek remained the language of government except at the highest levels. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not settle in Egypt in large numbers. Culture, education and civic life largely remained Greek throughout the Roman period."

But there are arguments both ways. It is not the end of the world if this subject is treated as two articles on Wikipedia, as long as the similarities are still made clear, as well as the differences.

The thing I really object to is that you say you did mean "eradication". Can you clarify whether you mean History of Greek and Roman Egypt should be deleted. I can't emphasise enough how bad this would be. Can I also check that you have understood that, admirable though the aim of splitting up this article is, that this presents huge problems with preserving the page history. I'll repeat what I said above: "copying and pasting huge chunks of material around Wikipedia is not the right way to do things - it creates problems for those trying to trace the article history" and also for correctly attributing who wrote what in an article.

The redirect thing is not so urgent now, as I've changed this page from a redirect to a sort of disambiguation/summary article. I apologise for not checking what work you had already done on the redirects, but would really appreciate it if you confirmed that you are now aware of the need to avoid cutting and pasting large chunks of text without merging the page histories. It is not something that is obvious, and it took me a while to find this out. Carcharoth 09:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I wanted initialy to delete it, but I changed my mind and turned it in a redirect to Greco-Roman. I tried to move the page, but was unable to do so because of: there allready exists a article of this name (a mere redirect which I had undirected - removed the link). But I really don't know such much about merging articles. Could you do me a favour: could you do a merge of Transalpine Gaul and Gallia Narbonensis? The subject (province) is really the same under two diffrent names, but please check it out. The better name would be Transalpine Gaul (this is the English Wiki after all) and Gallia Narbornensis would be a redirect. I hope that you don't get mad about this request. But you seem to know how to do it correctly. I would eventually only cut the text fom "Narbonensis" and past it into Transalpine Gaul and then turn "Narbo" into a redirect. I would have done the same for this article but then I was unsure if I should turn it into a redirect of Ptolomaic or Roman Egypt, so I turned it into redirect to Greco-Roman. Flamarande 10:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I must admit I myself found a bit strange the redirect to Graeco-Roman; but I agreed on splitting the article, but understand the problem of the 110 links; I'll try to reduce their number today. At the end, I feel we should simply delete History of Greek and Roman Egypt, and not make it a summary of the two articles; continuity may be treated, as observed by Carcharoth, in the two articles.--Aldux 12:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no! You cannot delete History of Greek and Roman Egypt until the page history has been merged into the page histories at Ptolemaic Egypt and Aegyptus (Roman province), which I believe is where the majority of the text was cut and pasted to. See Wikipedia:Merge and Wikipedia:How_to_break_up_a_page. Note in particular: "Important: Whenever you break up a page, please note the split (including the page names) in the edit summaries."

As merging of page histories is complicated (and something that I think only admins can do), I think it is best to leave History of Greek and Roman Egypt in place as a record of the history of the text that got moved to the different locations. Directing the links to either Ptolemaic Egypt or Aegyptus (Roman province) would also be good - thanks for that. Carcharoth 16:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, there's no urgency for doing such a thing; personally I care only about the links.--Aldux 16:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. If you need a hand, let me know. I enjoy dabbing links from time to time! :-) Carcharoth 16:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

PS. I've answered Flamarande's request on Flamarande's talk page. Carcharoth 16:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, but the work's done! I've finished! :-)--Aldux 17:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I have to give credit where credit is due. I thank you for doing this unrewarding work with such speed. (If i were an oriental I would humbly and discreetly bow, but Alas I am a gaijin/gweilo and therefore I will only say: "Thank you very much". Flamarande 10:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing redirect

In fact, I've been bold, and I've removed the redirect and turned this into a stubby disambiguation page that will hopefully turn into a summary style article. Carcharoth 23:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation page

The Ptolemaic Kingdom and Egypt (Roman province) articles made this article's content redundant. I thus took a bold step and turned it into a disambiguation page. --BomBom (talk) 15:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)