Ink History; The Antiquity And First Centuries Ad

[Morbus Curiositas]

Ink History Antiquity

 

The History of ink dates back to the ancient times of Antiquity. Unfortunately it is not possible to date the exact time when the first Inks where use. One could safely say that the first use of ink was a giant step (in the advance of culture.

 

Before this time pictures or texts where carved in stone, clay tablets and sheets of metal. Another way saving text or pictures was to burn them in wood wax or Ivory (Greenpeace and the WWF were not very active in those days…I presume) J

 

 

Following Maurice Jametel* in the book l’Encre de Chine X son histoire et sa fabrication. The first Chinese ink was invented b Tien Chen under the reign of Emperor Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor in the time of the three sovereigns and 5 Emperors (Ancient History of China… (I guess us Europeans where Neanterthalers in that time and since the us caveman could not write the words Mayflower or founding fathers, it is safe to say there was not much ink in ‘Western Civilisation` in those days J)

 

The ink commonly used in those days was based on an art of lacquer applied to the paper with bamboo sticks

 

As from the 3^rd Century bc. ink based on soot where produced. The soot was obtained by burning lacquer and the use of pine wood charcoal. The ink was dried and pressed in bars for sale. Before using the ink one head to chafe off the ink bar and mix the ink with water… (Well so much to start-up problems of modern Fountain PensJ)

 

In later times the soot was gained by carbonizing/charcoaling oil of Dyandra Seeds or hemp (very interesting for my fellow DutchmenJ). The soot was mixed with animal lime/glue and camphor. Quite often it was also used with Sepia in those days.

 

In Egypt written texts where found , written on Papyrus and even after thousands of years these inks are very bright and legible. According to Landerer in the archive of Pharmacists these inks too where based on S/soot and oil.

 

In ancient Greece and Italy the inks where solely based on soot

 

In his book 7^th book:”Architectura” Vitruvius (Roman architect and Author 80-15 BC) was obtained by burning resin in specially constructed ovens

 

In the year 35 Pliny the elder in his book Naturalis Historia (Pliny’s natural History) describes that the soot was obtained from the ovens of the thermal bathing houses. Another way of producing ink, as described by Pliny, was mixing the soot obtained from burning ivory with wine yeast. Before wrting the ink was rubbed with rubber.

 

An ancient ink recipe was delivered by Pedanius Dioscorides (Greek physician and pharmacist ( 40-90 a.d). His recipe: 3 parts of spruce soot mixed with one part of rubber (parental warning: do NOT try this at home)

 

The in later literature often mentioned Sepia was not used by all Greeks. Aristotle (if you do not know him you probably only write with birosJ) does not mention the use of Sepia in inks, in his book “Historia Animalum” and even Pliny mentioned not to use sepia. In contrary both Cicero in his 2^nd book De Natura Deorum (On the nature of Gods), and later in Epistolae (lettersto friends), and also Persius Flacca (Roman poet and satirist 34-62 a.d.) write that the use of Sepia was very common-

 

The then used soot- and sepia inks where exclusively made for use on Papyrus. The Inks was easily washed off. In ancient times therefore a sponge was used to erase written texts (recycling avant la letter J)

 

Pliny advised to use of Absinth to keep mice away from ink.

 

Iron gall Inks… Besides using silver inks, which traces were found on mummies, a sort of iron gall ink was available in the Antiquities. Iron particles for example for where found in handwritings dating back before the birth of Christ.

 

Phylo of Byzantium (Greek writer and engineer 280-220 bc) mentioned an art of secret handwriting, using sympathetic (invisible) Ink… The secret to this secret handwriting was the use some sort of iron gall acid ink, made of nutgalls. When the paper was dried, the ink became visible again after the treatment with iron containing copper salt. The ink used, must have been a percussive sort of iron gall ink.

 

Further proof of the existence of iron gall inks can be found in book 35 of “Naturalis Historia” (Natural History) by Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher 23-79 AD). In this book he describes a way of testing the purity of alum with the use of an nutgall extract, which in combination with iron salts turns black.

 

Pliny mentioned a remarkable chemical reaction in book 34 of Naturalis Historia. He speaks of the contamination of copper acetate with Atramentum (the black pigment)… Heated on a spoon the copper acetate remains black if it was pure. In contrast, contaminated with Atramentum turns red.

 

 

These notes of Pliny deserve attention as it is the first description of a chemical colour changing reaction.

 

Beside the black also coloured inks were in use in the antiquities like for example golden and silver inks.

 

The ancient Egyptians for example were the first to use red inks made out of a variety of materials, for the capitals in their written texts. The pigments used consisted of both an-organic and organic substances. An-organic ink was made of cinnabar and lead oxide. Organic materials are made of vegetable or animal substances.

 

A very renowned pigment in those days was Dragon’s Blood , also called Indian Cinnabar or Vermillion Which is a resin that contained the highly toxic cinnabar. The Dragon’s Blood was mainly used for painting in books though.

 

Alizarin, also known as Red Mordant or Turkish Red, a red pigment made of an extraction of the Rubia Tinctorum, mixed with chalk and milk, really have been used for writing..

 

Other ancient red dye was Carthamin which derived from Safflower (Carthamus Tintorius, , a thistle like plant. Carthamin was used as a dye in ancient Egypt and for dyeing wool in the European carpet industries. Carthamin known in Japan as ‘beni’ was also used for making cosmetics for geishas an kabuki artists.

 

The most important and valuable ancient ink though made of the body fluids of Purpura sea snails. There was a period that the inks were exclusively used by the Byzantine emperors

 

 

The main snail species used for these inks were:

 

Purpura Pelagia (Murus- of Herpaplex Trunculus) which produced a very distinctive purple blue (indigo) ink

 

Murex Brandaris: A sea snail used for the production of Thyrian Purple. A very expensive ink, since you “only” needed 12,000 snails for 1.4 kilos of ink J.

 

A Law by Emperor Leo I. reserved the inks mentioned above, exclusively for the emperor for his signatures. When the Emperor was under age, so his guardian had to sign, using green ink.

 

In later times, due to the exorbitant prices and the difficulties of production, most red inks where made of cinnabar. The scale insect, Latin Kermes Vermillio (what’s in a name) was used for the production of another much used red ink named Vermillion. In contrast to the purple inks, reserved for Emperors, the reds were made for common use.

 

Chrysorgraphy (gold writing) played a very important role in the times of early Christianity. Titus Flavius Jospephus (Romano-Jewish historian 37-100 AD) wrote in his book “Antiquitates Judaicae” (Judean antiquities, that Ptolamy Philadelphus (Son of Cleopatra II and Marcus Antonius) received a copy of the holy book with gold characters on parchment.

 

In the 2^nd century AD the Chrysography developed to a widespread art, mostly used in Byzantium. In the beginning all the characters were written in gold on Purpur Parchment. In times later only the headlines were written in gold while the rest of the text was written in silver. Many books written in this way have been discovered in the past.

 

The luxury of Chrysography was seen as such a form of decadence that Saint Jerome of Stridon turned against it (Pope Francis avant la lettreJ). On the other hand, the art of chrysograpy was so immensely popular that even the East Roman emperor practised it.

 

In the beginning flakes of gold were glued to the paper with protein and in ancient Egypt a form of rubber was used to glue the characters. (That’s a tiny bit more difficult than printing text with a Hewlett Packard, isn’t it? ;-)

 

Dating back to later time s many recipes for production of gold inks were found. One recipe describes the mixing fine gold chips with wine and the ox gall or protein. Yummy…

 

As mentioned before also silver inks were used in ancient times. The bible translation Codex Argenteus by Ulfilas (Gothic bishop and bible translator 311-383 AD) was written with silver ink (Argentum is silvri Latin), with only the capitals written in gold. Unfortunately the silver ink withered in the course of times making most text written in silver illegible today.

 

I hereby wish to thank Dr Franz Josef Jansen for his research and for allowing me to translate publish the articles from his website www.die-tintenmanufaktur

 

See you next time on history of ink middle ages

 

Kind regards

 

Peter Vlutters

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Morbus Curiositas]

Sorry for not posting the pics to the texts concearned...

 

I tried that 3 times and it crashed :-(

 

Here's the text to the pictures

From above

1 bible transcript

2 alazirin

3 beni shoga

4Byzantine purple

5 dragon's blood

6 book by Maurice Jametel

7My ink holiness ;-) dr Jansen

8 Rubia Tinctorum

9 Vermilio on ancient painting

 

Hope this makes it understandable

 

Regards

 

Peter

[Uncle Red]

#4 doesn't look like murex purple I've seen. Those examples were redder.

[Morbus Curiositas]

#4 doesn't look like murex purple I've seen. Those examples were redder.

Sorry for that uncle red...

 

Have to do some research...

 

Do you have a good example for that... I would be glad...

 

Thanks for the info

 

Greetz Peter

[Pickwick]

Very interesting, thank you.

[Morbus Curiositas]

#4 doesn't look like murex purple I've seen. Those examples were redder.

I did some searching

 

Here is the text to photo 1 of this reply

 

Three thousand years ago the Phoenicians controlled trade in purple dyed silks. The gland of the sea-snail Murex trunculus secretes a yellow fluid that, when exposed to sunlight, turns purple-blue. A similar dye, the Tyrian Purple was made from the Murex brandaris yielding purple red colors. Both dyes were extremely expensive. Photo and text: ktersakian.com

 

 

I am quite curious for the murex purple you have seen...

 

you wouldn't happen to have an example?

 

Would be very glad if you post this....

 

Hope this was helpful to you

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thanks for the translations.

That is really getting into inks.

 

I need some Emperor purple ink....probably illegal now.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Bo Bo Olson

[Morbus Curiositas]

Hi bobo...

Thanks for the translations.

That is really getting into inks.

 

I need some Romper purple ink....probably illegal now.

Hi bobo what is romper?

 

I find only purple baby clothes on google...

 

There will be some more intersting articles soon

 

Tschüss :-) Peter

[Bo Bo Olson]

Emperor

Hit the first tiny spelling of a word in that small spelling block and I get to romp with ink.

[Morbus Curiositas]

Emperor

Hit the first tiny spelling of a word in that small spelling block and I get to romp with ink.

Well BoBo

 

How about us catchin some snails and boil some ink out of them ?

 

If you won't tell Greenpeace, I won't tell the WWF

[amberleadavis]

Hey, I missed this way back when, what a wonderful discussion about inks and history.

 

Any news on the snails?

 

What about those squids?

[webgeckos]

Just as a note: the snail used to color silk etc, is actually extinct in the Med; however, they were found off the shore of Mexico. You get the color by tickling it, they spit, and it is the spit that slowly oxidizes and turns royal purple. In the med they crushed them, but it is easy to extract the goo from them without harming them.

[amberleadavis]

If I could draw, I'd doodle a picture of eco friendly ink made by snail tickling.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

That has to be one small feather. And how do you separate the spit from the slime?