Template:Did you know nominations/Armenian cochineal

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 01:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Armenian cochineal

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~~... that Armenian cochineal insects (a female pictured) were more valuable, by weight, than gold in the 15th century?~~

Reviewed: Tumauini Church

Created by Ketone16 (talk). Nominated by Yerevantsi (talk) at 21:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC).

New enough, easily long enough, meets core content policies. Hook is superb. AGF offline/paywalled sources for hook. --Jakob (talk) 14:35, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THIS NOMINATION. There seems to be a problem with the hook. I will propose a new hook soon. --Երևանցի ^talk 18:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Struck the hook, since the article says 1000 grams of insect was more valuable than 5 grams of gold. New hook definitely needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

That was a recent update to the article (as of yesterday); it appears that some of the otherwise-reliable sources that suggested that the insects were worth more by weight than gold incorrectly interpreted the original author of the research. Ketone16 (talk) 00:47, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure about a new hook. One angle might be the value of the insects as a red dye the the Middle East and Europe prior to the arrival of American cochineal, particularly for silks. The dye had a lot of fame in the Islamic world -- they even nicknamed one of the Armenian cities after it. Another angle could have to do with the large amount of insects needed to make a small amount of dye, although I might have to add a fact or two to the article to support that: one author estimates that it took nearly a half million insects to dye one kilogram of silk crimson. That's kind of a neat fact, although one could probably come up with similarly astonishing figures for the other species of dye-producing insects. Or the hook could be something that played on the conservation status -- the wide range of the insect and its density when it emerged (a number of travelers marveled at it and apparently livestock would get colored red by wandering through the fields where the insects lived), contrasted to the tiny area (a couple of square kilometers) that the species now occupies -- I might need to add a fact or two on that as well. In terms of the value of the insects, one author notes that they were worth more (pound-for-pound) than slaves, which would make for a compelling, if somewhat awful, hook. Ketone16 (talk) 18:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Here are two uncontroversial hooks:

ALT1 ... that the Armenian cochineal, (a female insect pictured) historically used to produce carmine dyestuff, is now critically endangered?
ALT2 ... that the dyestuff extracted from the Armenian cochineal (a female insect pictured) was used to paint rugs, manuscripts, and frescoes?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yerevantsi (talk • contribs) 20:05, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a combination of the two?

ALT3 ... that the dyestuff extracted from the endangered Armenian cochineal (female pictured) was used to dye rugs and paint manuscripts and frescoes?

Ketone16 (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I support ALT3. --Երևանցի ^talk 18:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

This article is new enough and long enough. The facts in ALT3 are suitably referenced. The image is appropriately licensed, the article is neutral and I saw no evidence of policy violations. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)