Talk:Tomb of Casimir IV Jagiellon/Archive 1

Archive 1

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 RoySmith (talk) 23:09, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that when a team of 12 experts opened the tomb of a medieval Polish king in 1973, 10 of them were dead within months? Source: Marchant (2013) The Shadow King ch.11, p.4
  • ALT1: ... that the "Jagiellonian curse" was blamed for the deaths of restoration workers who opened the tomb of a medieval Polish king in 1973? Source: Gazeta Krakovska, (19 May 2014) In Polish, key passages: "When the royal tomb was opened, the Jagiellonian curse began to work...The first victim of conservation works in the Holy Cross Chapel at Wawel in 1972 and 1973 and the opening of the grave of Casimir Jagiellon was the Wawel architect, who died of a stroke in the spring of 1974...In 10 years, 15 people working on the restoration of the tomb died...People did not hide their fear: could it be that a story identical to that of the "curse of Tutankhamun"...was to be repeated?"
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Syphilis in sub-Saharan Africa

Created by DeCausa (talk). Self-nominated at 22:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

QPQ: - Not done
Overall: All points check out, and both hooks are cited, ready to go apart from the QPQ. Moonraker (talk) 07:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Moonraker: Thanks. Now added completed QPQ: Template:Did you know nominations/Syphilis in sub-Saharan Africa. DeCausa (talk) 13:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

With the QPQ, ready to go now. Moonraker (talk) 11:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

What were the causes of death?

Seems the causes of death would be a salient point of this article and only one is mentioned in the discussion. Sounds like hearsay and, frankly, smells bad. I think a more senior editor should put in what is known about the causes of death (show them all related to the fungus), or delete the whole 10 death curse part of the article as unverified. Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 02:36, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you define who a "senior editor" is? Deleting the deaths as "unverified" is nonsense. I don't think you understand how sourcing (or verification) works on WP. Plenty of reliable sources attribute the deaths to the fungus. Whether you agree with them and what you "smell" is irrelevant. WP:V is absolutely fulfilled. Pretty obviously, I'd have put the causes of death in the article if I had found sources saying what they were. (You're welcome to research it yourself). However, I haven't found a source in English that identifies causes of death (if you read Polish WP:SOFIXIT) but, it's irrelevant for Wikipedia anyway - we can't challenge what reliable sources say based on our view of the causes of death because that would constitute WP:OR. Also, just so you're aware, as I see you're a new editor, we can't use one source that says the cause of death was X and another source that says X can't be caused by fungus to make a statement that these deaths weren't caused by the fungus. It all has to be covered in the same source - combining the two in that way is prohibited under WP:SYNTH. But, even if you found a single source that says the cause of death was X which was not caused by the fungus, all that would change in the article is that additional text would be added to say that the original view has been challenged. That's because we have a principle called WP:DUE that we have to reflect all views proportionately - and there's certainly a lot of reliable sources attributing the death to the fungus that we can't just ignore. The so-called "curse" has got nothing to do with it anyway. I hope that's ll clear to you now. DeCausa (talk) 07:42, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

To some extent, I agree. How are we defining "prematurely" and how do we define "unexpectedly"? Are these just a few microbiologists who are trying to round up a "rational and scientific" cause to dispel rumors of a curse? Is there some definitive link or autopsies done on all bodies to definitively identify presence of the fungus in all of them? Or is this just a bunch of hokey guesswork in a lab Elizium23 (talk) 23:33, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

In respect of this question "prematurely" and "unexpectedly" is irrelevant. The sources link the cause of death to the fungus. Unless other sources question/refure that (there may be but I haven't found them) then these sort of points are just WP:OR. It's not our job to go full Agatha Christie - that's the job of the sources and we just report them. DeCausa (talk) 23:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The sources, huh? Is this not WP:MEDRS territory? The sources that "link" cause of death to the fungus consist of The Times which is an English newspaper last I checked, and we've got a dictionary, and we've got a sensationalist book published by "Da Capo", written by an "award-winning journalist" about King Tut's Tomb. Is that WP:MEDRS compliant for telling us how 10 men died in the 70s? Elizium23 (talk) 23:52, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I've tagged a few spots in the article that need help. I'm sorry but this just beggars belief. It seems like some scientists here are playing "armchair quarterback" and they're being reported in the popular sensationalist press like it's Gospel. There were ten men. They're all dead and buried. There's no autopsy, there's no conclusive results, there's just someone going "oh, this fungus plus these toxins equals ten deaths, case closed!" And we've put Weasel Words on it and called it a DYK. "It is believed" sure - by whom? who cares? Elizium23 (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

MEDRS? Way over the top. The Times, Gazeta Krakowska etc sensationalist press? Maybe it's better to attribute the claims but those sources are fine to cover something that's widely reported. I you do some work on it you'll find it almost entirely tracks back to Polish language sources. Knock yourself out. DeCausa (talk) 08:48, 20 November 2022 (UTC)