Forty Centuries of Ink | Page 6

David N. Carvalho
then He presently began to take the cloths out of the
furnace; and they were all dyed of those same colors which the dyer
desired. And when the Jews saw this surprising miracle they praised
God."
The ancients used also a number of tinctures as ink, among them a
brown color, sepia, in Hebrew tekeleth. As a natural ink its origin
antedates every other ink, artificial or otherwise, in the world. It is a
black-brown liquor, secreted by a small gland into an oval pouch, and
through a connecting duct is ejected at will by the cuttle fish which
inhabits the seas of Europe, especially the Mediterranean. These fish
constantly employ the contents of their "ink bags" to discolor the water,
when in the presence of enemies, in order to facilitate their escape from
them.
The black broth of the Spartans was composed of this product. The
Egyptians sometimes used it for coloring inscriptions on stone. It is the
most lasting of all natural ink substances.
So great is the antiquity of artificial ink that the name of its inventor or
date of its invention are alike unknown. The poet Whitehead refers to it
as follows:
Hard that his name it should not save, Who first poured forth the sable

wave."
The common black ink of the ancients was essentially different in
composition and less liable to fade than those used at the present time.
It was not a stain like ours, and when Horace wrote
"And yet as ink the fairest paper stains, So worthless verse pollutes the
fairest deeds,"
he must have had in mind the vitriolic ink of his own time.
But little information relative to black inks of the intermediate times
has come down to us, and it is conveyed through questioned writings of
authors who flourished about the period of the life of Jesus Christ; the
Younger Pliny and Dioscorides are the most prominent of them. They
present many curious recipes. One of these, suggested by Pliny, is that
the addition of an infusion of wormwood to ink will prevent the
destruction of MSS. by mice.
From a memoir by M. Rousset upon the pigments and dyes used by the
ancients, it would appear that the variety was very considerable.
Among the white colors, they were acquainted with white lead; and for
the blacks, various kinds of charcoal and soot were used. Animal skins
were dyed black with gall apples and sulphate of iron (copper). Brown
pigments were made by mixing different kinds of ochre. Under the
name of Alexander blue, the ancients--Egyptians as well as Greeks and
Romans--used a pigment containing oxide of copper, and also one
containing cobalt.
Fabrics were dyed blue by means of pastel-wood.
Yellow pigments were principally derived from weld, saffron, and
other native plants.
Vermilion, red ochre, and minium (red lead) were known from a
remote antiquity, although the artificial preparation of vermilion was a
secret possessed only by the Chinese.

The term scarlet as employed in the Old Testament was used to
designate the blood-red color procured from an insect somewhat
resembling cochineal, found in great quantities in Armenia and other
eastern countries. The Arabian name of the insect is Kermez (whence
crimson). It frequents the boughs of a species of the ilex tree: on these
it lays its eggs in groups, which become covered with a sort of down,
so that they present the appearance of vegetable galls or excrescences
from the tree itself and are described as such by Pliny XVI, 12, who
also gave it the name of granum, probably on account of its
resemblance to a grain or berry, which has been adopted by more recent
writers and is the origin of the term "ingrain color" as now in use. The
dye is procured from the female grub alone, which, when alive is about
the size of the kernel of a cherry and of a dark red-brown color, but
when dead, shrivels up to the size of a grain of wheat and is covered
with a bluish mold. It has an agreeable aromatic smell which it imparts
to that with which it comes into contact. It was first found in general
use in Europe in the tenth century. About 1550, cochineal, introduced
there from Mexico, was found to be far richer in coloring matter and
therefore gradually superseded the older dyestuff.
Indigo was used in India and Egypt long before the Christian era; and it
is asserted that blue ribbons (strips) found on Egyptian mummies 4500
years old had been dyed with indigo. It was introduced into Europe
only in the sixteenth century.
The use of madder as a red dyestuff dates from very early times. Pliny
mentions it as being employed by the Hindoos, Persians and Egyptians.
In the middle ages the names sandis, warantia,
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