Talk:Dentistry in ancient Rome

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A fact from Dentistry in ancient Rome appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 July 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the ancient Romans made toothpaste with human urine?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Dentistry in ancient Rome.

Wikipedia

Did you know nomination

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 SL93 (talk) 12:35, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that the ancient Romans whitened teeth with the ammonia in urine? Source: ^[1]
- Reviewed: MicroOffice RoadRunner
- Comment: I believe this hook is good enough to appear in the Did you know? section because it will shock the reader. This fact is so disgusting and seemingly counterintuitive that the reader will be desperate to know more.

Created by Graearms (talk). Self-nominated at 14:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Not a full review, but I've modified the hook slightly to conform with DYK standards (per WP:DYKRULES the article needs to be in bold). Epicgenius (talk) 16:40, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- And I've swapped a few words in the hook to avoid a WP:EGG issue. When urine rome... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 22:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Article meets DYK requirements and is free from close paraphrasing. A QPQ has been done. The hook is interesting to a broad audience and is cited inline; as I don't have access to the journal articles used I am assuming good faith on their reliability. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @Graearms and Narutolovehinata5: did the Romans use urine on teeth, trusting the ammonia within would work its chemistry, or did they extract raw ammonia from urine and apply that? One source claims they made a toothpaste from human urine, which the other two don't – come to think of it, that's a pretty great hook of its own: theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 12:03, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - ALT1: ... that the ancient Romans made toothpaste with human urine?

I think that works, but I'd like to hear from the nominator first. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:18, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron and Narutolovehinata5: I personally think the alternate hook works too. I actually think it works better because most people are probably more familiar with toothpaste than ammonia. Graearms (talk) 13:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so my issue right now is that the article doesn't refer to the Romans using urine as toothpaste. Maybe instead of using ammonia, just say that they used urine to whiten teeth? Go straight to the point, don't use the ammonia detail. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I still want to keep the "ammonia" detail. Perhaps we could change the sentence in the article to "The ancient Romans whitened their teeth using toothpaste made from the ammonia in urine and goat milk." Graearms (talk) 13:48, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When I think about it, the ammonia detail seems excessive. Like, did the Romans even know about ammonia? Was the ammonia use by the Romans an accident? If it was, not mentioning ammonia and simply saying urine may be the safer option here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alright then, I'll remove it Graearms (talk) 14:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. This will be good to go once the article specifies "human" urine (right now it simply says "urine" without the human part). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:38, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Narutolovehinata5: I specified that just now. Graearms (talk) 02:26, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Restoring tick. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:05, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SL93: any chance you could stick this in the quirky slot of P2? We're still low on non-U.S. non-bios... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 12:12, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Lenkeit, Roberta Edwards (2018-10-23). High Heels and Bound Feet: And Other Essays on Everyday Anthropology, Second Edition. Waveland Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-4786-3841-4.

[1] Lenkeit, Roberta Edwards (2018-10-23). High Heels and Bound Feet: And Other Essays on Everyday Anthropology, Second Edition. Waveland Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-4786-3841-4.

[1]