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Talk:Khutu

A fact from Khutu appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 December 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that proposed sources of khutu have included narwhal, walrus, and mammoth ivory, the frontal bones of bulls, goats, and birds, the teeth of snakes, fish, and hippopotamuses, and the root of a tree? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/December.

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Khutu[edit]

• ... that proposed sources of khutu have included narwhal, walrus, and mammoth ivory, the frontal bones to bulls, goats, and birds, the teeth of snakes, fish, and hippopotamuses, and the root of a tree?

Created by Matt Deres (talk) 04:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)). Self nom at 04:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• New article, length and date verified, AGF for the offline ref used for the hook. Smartse (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Not to sound rude, but I have doubts about notability of this article (at least as a stand-alone page). It basically says that most materials could be used for knife handles. Other thoughts? Materialscientist (talk) 06:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I've either not been clear enough in writing the article (most likely) or you're not reading it closely enough :). There was a material known as khutu and it was used both for making knife handles and as a kind of touchstone for poisons. Exactly what khutu was has been the subject of speculation for a thousand years, but it was a distinct thing that showed up in cutler's material bins in the 900s. Various researchers have proposed different identities for the source of khutu, with the "hook" being that their guesses have touched on an amusingly wide array of things, but khutu is not a synonym for "stuff you make a knife handle with". According to my sources, khutu was also the start of the chain of materials you could supposedly use to identify poisons with, which makes it part of the story of the various properties assigned to the unicorn. That might also make a good hook, but I haven't developed that part of the article yet ;). Matt Deres (talk) 20:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• That sounds like a reasonable enough explanation to me - and the article looks well sourced, so no reason to hold this one back IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  The above explanation sounds Ok, but the article still reads merely as "stuff you make a knife handle with". The anti-poison material (forget the unicorn) needs to be properly reflected, starting from the lead. Materialscientist (talk) 01:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, yeah, it was stuff that was used to make knife handles - in the same way that elephant ivory was something used to make billiard balls with. I'm trying not to turn this into a confrontation, but honestly - what of it? I've provided the names of six scholars who felt that khutu was a notable enough item in its own right to merit discussion. If you honestly feel that the article doesn't meet notability, stop wasting my time here and take it to AFD. Your second point completely confuses me; the point about it being an alexipharmic is made in the lead, which is then expanded with two direct (and sourced) quotes later in the article. If/when real-world stuff settles down, I plan on expanding this portion of the article, but that's not likely to happen for at least a week. Matt Deres (talk) 12:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• i agree that it will be good for the article to be broadened, but it seemed very well put-together and adequate in its current form, and certainly appears OK or DYK at present. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Is this an article about the literary history of a thing for which there are no known physical specimens? That amounts to an article about a word, the thing to which the word applied having been lost, or being stuff of legend. Compare Category:Medieval legends. --Una Smith (talk) 15:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]