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title: "Some incomplete notes on Les Encres noires au Moyen Âge"
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Some very incomplete and casual-in-tone notes on Monique, Zerdoun Bat-Yehouda. 2003. Les Encres Noires au Moyen Age. Paris: CNRS EDITIONS. Originally a Twitter thread.
Pp 3-4: claims that previous studies have been limited to describing colour, shades and broad properties. Wants to add scientific principles that will help to date and localise specific inks. But also to find methods for restoration projects. Focuses on Hebrew manuscripts, which is useful for worldwide circulation due to diasporic dispersion
Lots of throat clearing until p 6. Notes that the laboratory analysis has been omitted from this book as the tone would have been so out of kilter with the rest. Instead, book is split into part 1, a history of black ink, part 2, a collection of recipes for manufacturing various categories of ink (eg carbon, metallogallic), and part 3, an index of the ancient authors studied
A curious quotation from Wang Xizhi here, in which the metaphor is of paper constituting the troops liked up for battle, the brush is a sword and shield, and ink is the love of a soldier
An interesting point here also that inks were sometimes expensive, and therefore historically formed gifts
There's a 10th century poem by a Buddhist monk called "thank you for ink" 😁
Breaks down inks into carbon and metallogallics, but says this doesn't capture richness of reality, with mixed inks and incomplete inks being added - p 14
There's a repetition, on p 15, of the well-known fact that ancient writing inks weren't different from many painting pigments. Think Tsien also makes this point. Carbon inks have many good properties. Chemically unreactive, nontoxic. However, they often do not penetrate the substrate that well. P 15
The metallogallic inks are vegetable extracts in the tannin class. Uses this term here instead of ferro-gallique - p 17
There's a lengthy description, on p 18, of why it's wrong to think that blue inks come from copper sulphate and green inks exclusively from iron sulphate
Mixed inks, in this text, refers to carbon inks combined with tannins - p 20
P 23 is on to etymologies of ink. There's the familiar reference to the Chinese character "mo" here, which this text claims has connotations of blackness. I need to learn more about this, but, as before, other sources claim that the earliest use was re tattooing for punishment. Claims that in India, oldest reference is masi or mashi, which refers to crushedness. There's a Hebrew etymology that I can't reproduce easily also given here and have no idea re its accuracy
In Arabic, it's here claimed, the oldest terms are midad and hibr. Apparently originally distinguished between carbon inks and other types but distinction now lost. Again - I haven't yet verified any of these etymological claims. Just relaying what's here. Ancient Greek and we have melan - (μέλαν, black), melan ho graphomen (black with which we write), and graphikon melan (black for writing).
The Latin encaustum, covered pp 24-5 is more complex. Comes from "to burn" - indicating carbon inks? - but other sources say that it was purple-red. Quite a long discussion follows, based on Pliny, as to whether this term ever referred to writing ink, or whether it was just for painting
Says that the encaustum refers to a specific product, compared to the use by painters, and involving the use of fire. P 27
Claims the purple red definition came later on p 28. Anyway, we eventually get to ink via incaustum and then lots of old French and German convolution etc etc - p 29
There's then a long section on the etymology of atramentum, which is, of course, of particular interest to this study of black ink pp 30-2
Importantly, I've had to take a break to eat some crumpets. P 33 starts a section on tincta as a root for Spanish and German forms of ink
P 34 notes the distinction between encre and arrement in a 14th c manuscript, saying that the latter is a component of the former - speculating that it's a sulphate
Phew. And p 37 draws the etymology section to a close, noting that attempts to draw a parallel between incaustum and corrosive burning, in particular, seem unlikely. P 41 confirms what others say: all the oldest inks known to us - from Egypt and China - are carbon based. My note: is this because it's all that was used, or all that survived? P 43 commences a literature review on ancient inkmaking, consulting these texts. Not a bad selection and tallies with my own reading.
P 44 has the by-now obligatory note that origin stories of the lone hero who invented ink don't cut it anymore and it is seen as a collaborative invention to which many people contributed
Pp45-7 gives the history of lacquer, mostly via Tsien (who remains my favourite author on all this stuff)
47-8 details the emergence and documentation of "stone ink". The best thing about this? Apparently nobody has any idea what it is, for certain. Ooh. P 51 has a really great timeline of ancient tracts on ink. Not posting the whole thing because this text is in copyright, but a flavour shown. Actually extremely useful.
P 52 has the oldest known Chinese recipe for ink. Of course, it's a carbon ink, with soot for pigment, and binder. P 53 details the Mo-king, which is a 12th century work that talks "in great detail" of producing soot from pines - and tells you which pines are best (the ones whose roots have been parasitized by the fou-ling fungus [great name but think it's normally "fu-ling"])
P 55 the Mo-fa tsi yao from 1398 shows how, by this point, oil had displaced pine resins for soot production
P 56 gives more detail on this - which sounds like a very complicated process involving evaporators, wicks, lamps
P 57 notes that early texts like the Mo-p'ou fa-che (1095) stress the importance of the binding agent for the quality of the ink. Bad binder = unusable ink. P 58 is a vegan horrorshow that details the various animals from which ink glues were derived
P 59 is about all the different additives - mostly vegetable - that went into early inks
Pp 60-1 are about how you get from the solid ink block to a usable liquid
P 64 is about Korean inkmaking. It's very brief and basically says "mostly like China but improved because they used better wood"
I am sorry to criticise this book, but it is quite uneven. 21 pages on China and then half a page on Korea, 1 page on Japan, 4 pages on India. P 67 has some interesting observations on Indian religious culture affecting the materials that could be used for inkmaking (see above remark re nonvegan)
P 71 - black ink in ancient Egypt has a longer history than in China, apparently. Unclear on the sourcing re this. Carbon inks, of course
Apparently many problems with understanding early Egyptian black inks as it's all reverse chemical composition analysis p 72
P 75 notes the erasibility of carbon inks, using a wet cloth. Provided the ink wasn't dried. P 76 - we don't know much about inks in ancient Egypt. Hmm. I think we know more than this chapter made out. P77 kicks of the Greco-Roman world of black inks
Long Latin quotation from Vitruvius's De architectura on proportion of mixes used to create different colours p 78
Two methods for making black. Soot or calcination products. P 79
Two recipes from Dioscoride follow on pp 80-1
There's apparently a claimed medical benefit in healing cuts and burns from one of these ink recipes. P 81
P83 gives recipes by Polygnote and Micon - which is similar to Vitruvius's. Pp 84-5 are all about erasing early carbon inks with a sponge
Pp 86-7 also about forms of erasure in Greco-Roman ink contexts
P 88 - this erasibility seems to be an important distinction from the more permanent Chinese carbon inks
P 89 - some reasons: Chinese sought finer black inks and the finer the grain, the deeper it sank into substrate; a different binder; and the different nature of substrates (bamboo etc)
The ancients also knew, p 90 claims, of Cuttlefish ink - say in the writings of Persius (Satires, III) where he refers to "Nigra set infusa uanescit sepia lympha" (but the blackness of the ink vanishes into the water [I think - I'm not very good at Latin])
P 91 seems to have a quotation from Anaxilas ("d'Anaxilaos") that makes reference to the strength of squid ink
P 91 is now moving to "metal salt" inks
P 92 details copper sulphate - it blue vitriol inks
Pp 93-4 details supposed magical processes for ink making
Pp 95-6 closes on questions of how a reddish-brown ink appears at this time and what it might have been made of
P 96 concludes it's likely a vegetable ink
That chapter was a very long way of saying that some Greco-Roman inks could be erased
P 97 turns to liturgical inks in Judaic traditions
Strict criteria for the preparation of inks used to write holy texts
The only biblical verse mentioning ink is Jeremiah XXXVI, 18. P 99
Apparently ink differs according to the use to which it was set. Writing the Torah vs scripture on doors vs divorce letters (get) p 100
Pp102-3 covers the use of olive oil in the inks for "get"
Crucial property of this ink is durability p 105
Continuation of debate on the nature of Mishnaic inks, including kankantum through to p 109
Still going on this at p116
P117 is about the use of plant inks in certain Western manuscripts due to reddy brown colour
P119 is on the difficulties of recreating original solid Talmudic inks when only liquid inks were later available
P121 summary
P123 is on to inks in Islamic countries
Up to p128 is covering the great variety of ink recipes and the apparent nonspecialisation of their creation
Lots of recipes up to p133
P140 - another unremarkable conclusion. All inks previously detailed were known to Islamic cultures.
Sadly, quite a few of this book's conclusions are of this not-very-exciting nature
P 145 is on to Europe in the IV and XVII centuries. Mentions how disappointing it is that known treatises are so quiet on ink until relatively late
P 144-5 first text in this context to give an ink recipe is by Cetius Faventinus
P150 carbon ink recipes rare in Western texts
Pp156-8 is text and translation of Encausto