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The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:

1. Courcelles (submissions)
2. Kosack (submissions)
3. Kees08 (submissions)
4. SounderBruce (submissions)
5. Cas Liber (submissions)
6. Nova Crystallis (submissions)
7. Iazyges (submissions)
8. Ceranthor (submissions)

All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:

• Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
• Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
• Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
• Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
• Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
• Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
• Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.

Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
• Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
• MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
• Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
• Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
• Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
• Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was
• Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.

Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them and within 24 hours of the end of the final. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), and Cwmhiraeth (talk)

For dedication to Ancient Egypt topic. Raven rs (talk) 20:25, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Raven rs thank you very much for the nice beer !!Iry-Hor (talk) 14:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've been going over the article on Sobekneferu which I expanded significantly several years ago. I've come across a detail I added that I'm unable to properly resolve. I came across – for whatever reason – a memoir from Edouard Naville published in 1887. It's freely available on Google Books. In it, Naville mentions a black granite sphinx statue that he found at Khaatanah, Kantir (Qantir) that appeared to him to carry the name of Sebekneferu (p. 21). However, he identified it as belonging to the Thirteenth Dynasty. There is a pl. ix. c in the appendix and it does carry the name Sobekneferu in cartouche and with nsw bit preceding, but he doesn't mention it in prose at all. I'm wondering, was there a point in Egyptology that Sobekneferu was thought to belong to the Thirteenth Dynasty? I'm also trying to figure out how I'd be able to identify where that statue is now or if it even still exists. Any ideas, yours or a learned tps' input desired. Thanks, Mr rnddude (talk) 16:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Mr rnddude

• On the 12th/13th Dynasty issue: It seems to me some of the problem is that the source is quite old (also let's beware of the fact that the appendix picture is what Naville read not a photograph from which his reading can be appraised. Indeed, he insists that the reading was difficult which is not the feeling his drawing conveys). In 1887 the understanding of the late Middle Kingdom to early SIP was quite a work in progress. Traditionally some made the 12th Dynasty stop with the death of Amenemhat III so that Sobekneferu (and Amenemhat IV but then largely unknown) was considered 13th Dynasty. The transition 12th/13th Dynasty is still somewhat mysterious to me (i.e. in what sense did the dynasty change?): the identity of Amenemhat IV's successor is debated but the two main candidates likely had some blood connection to the preceding rulers. The capital of Egypt was Itjtawy at the time and did not seem to move until late in the 13th Dynasty. As with the Old Kingdom, Manetho'sd ynasties may not relate well our modern concept of what a dynasty is. According to Africanus the last ruler of the 12th Dynasty was "Skemiophris" (possibly Sobekneferu) and no mention is made of Amenemhat IV, while the 13th Dynasty account is super fuzzy ("60 kings of Thebes for 453 years"). Naville must have known Manetho so his choice seems deliberate. The Turin canon had not been properly published at the time (waiting for Gardiner's first publication) so he could not have used this source.
• On the sphinx (note Tell ed-Dab‘a = Qantir = Khatana = Avaris): in the Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, p. 950 in the article on Qantir it says that Naville excavated it and: "Contacts at this time with Ebla (Tell Mardikh) in Syria can be demonstrated by a scepter of King Hotepibre (early 13th Dynasty) found in an Ebla royal tomb. A statue of the same king was found by Labib Habachi at Tell ed-Dab‘a, together with statues of the last monarch of the 12th Dynasty, Queen Sobekneferu. It is not improbable that Tell ed-Dab‘a, which was inhabited then mainly by Asiatics, played an important role in this king’s foreign relations." In the Blackwell companion to Ancient Egypt p. 908 we have some precisions: "Sobeknofru, the wife of Amenemhet IV and, according to the historian Manetho, his sister as well, was the last king of Dynasty Twelve. On three headless statues from Khatana (Habachi 1952: 458ff., pls. 8–9) she wears traditional female attire, but, in a torso in the Louvre of unknown provenance (Delange 1987: 30–1), she is depicted with both male and female attributes. Atop the traditional female sheath dress, she wears a nemes, a double lobed, pierced amulet on a beaded chain of the type usually worn by kings beginning with Senwosret II, and a high-waisted kilt with a triangular projection first appearing under Senwosret III. Another attempt to combine genders is shown in her use of both male and female titles (Callender 2000: 170–1)." I think Naville's sphinx is one of the statues (re)published by Habachi who worked in Avaris, see "Habachi, L. 1954. Khatâ‘na-Qantir: Importance, ASAE 52: 443–562." look at p. 458.Iry-Hor (talk) 15:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking a look at this and finding the relevant information so quickly. Habachi did find the same statue. He writes about it on p. 462 in the version available on archive.org. He mentions that Naville read the cartouche as carrying her nomen Sobekneferu, rather than her praenomen Sobekkare as Habachi identifies. Though, he says that no sign is visible there anymore. He also says that it is made of basalt... which is a touch unfortunate because I'd just corrected the article from basalt to granite because Naville said granite and not basalt. Curiously the sphinx was left in its original place. Perhaps not enough of the sphinx remained to be worth retrieving. Given the drawings by both Naville and Habachi, it might just be a block with part of the forepaws that still exists and nothing more. I'll take a further look around for anything more about it. Thanks again, Mr rnddude (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mr rnddude It is also interesting that the find spot is Avaris. As likely happened for other similar finds (e.g. the colossus of Imyremeshaw) the sphinx might have originated from elsewhere (Itjtawy?) and could have been transported there under the Hyksos. Opposite this view, in his monumental work on Avaris Avaris, THE CAPITAL OF THE HYKSOS Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dab'a, Manfred Bietak wrote : " In 1941 Labib Habachi found a statue of this king together with three statues of the queen Sobeknofru, the last ruler of the 12th Dynasty, in a small sanctuary near our palace. This king had perhaps originally been the queen's chief steward, who after her reign was in a position to seize the Egyptian throne for a time. His name indicates that he was the son of an Asiatic. Most likely he was one of the functionaries of the Asiatic settlement at Tell el-Dabca.". So he seems to think Habachi uncovered the statues (he cites Habachi's 1954 paper), makes no mention of Naville, and postulates an interesting connection between Sobekneferu and of the early 13th Dynasty king. On the end of the 12th Dynasty, Grajeztki states here (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3gk7274p) an opposite view: "The end of the 12th Dynasty and the succession to the 13th Dynasty are still not fully understood. It is most often assumed that Amenemhat IV did not leave any male heir and that Neferusobek also died without an heir so that a new, unrelated line of rulers ascended the throne". He refers to this as a source on Sobekneferu's reign. Do you want more details on her reign ? I can look deeper in my numerical library.Iry-Hor (talk) 17:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By all means, additional sources and information appreciated if you have the time and interest for it. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mr rnddude I am just back from vacations, yes I will look into my library and shall post here if I find new stuff related to Sobekneferu.Iry-Hor (talk) 09:15, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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