Forty Centuries of Ink | Page 8

sort of colour that came from aegypt, very lasting, 6
Denarii,=3 s. 10 1/2 d.
Myrobalanus, 2 Denarii,=1 s. 3 1/2 d.
The last-named substance is the fruit of the Termi- nalia, a product of
China and the East Indies, best known as Myrabolams and must have
been utilized solely for the tannin they contain, which Loewe estimates
to be identical with ellago-tannic acid, later discovered in the divi-divi,
a fruit grown in South America, and bablah which is also a fruit of a
species of Acacia, well known also for its gum.
No monuments are extant of the ancient Myrabolam ink.
Antimony and galls were used by the Egyptian ladies to tint their eyes
and lashes and (who knows) to write with.
Many of the dyes employed as ink were those occurring naturally as
animal and vegetable products, or which could be produced therefrom
by comparatively simple means, otherwise we would not be confronted
with the fact that no specimens of ink writing of natural origin remain
to us.
The very few specimens of ink writing which have outlasted decay and
disintegration through so many ages, are found to be closely allied to
materials like bitumen, lampblack obtained from the smoke of oil-
torches or resins; or gold, silver, cinnabar and minium.

Josephus asserts that the books of the ancient Hebrews were written in
gold and silver.
"Sicca dewat" (A silver ink standeth), as the ancient Arabic proverb
runs.
Rosselini asserts:
"the monumental hireoglyphics of the Egyptians were almost invariably
painted with the liveliest tints; and when similar hireoglyphics were
executed on a reduced scale, and in a more cursive form upon papyri or
scrolls made from the leaves of the papyrus the pages were written with
both black and colored inks."
The early mode of ink writing in biblical times mentioned in Numbers
v. 23, where It is said "the priest shall write the curses in a book, and
blot them out with the bitter water," was with a kind of ink prepared for
the purpose, without any salts of iron or other material which could
make a permanent dye; these maledictions were then washed into the
water, which the woman was obliged to drink, so that she drank the
very words of the execration. The ink still used in the East is almost all
of this kind; a wet sponge will obliterate the finest of their writings.
In the book of Jeremiah, chap. xxxvi. verse 18, it says: "Then Baruch
answered, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and
I wrote THEM with ink in the book," and in Ezek. ix. 2, 3, 11, "Ink
horn" is referred to.
Six hundred years later in the New Testament is another mention of ink
"having many things to write unto you. I would not write with paper
and Ink," &c.; second epistle. of John, 12, and again in his third epistle,
13, "I had many things to write, but I will not with pen and Ink write
unto thee."
The illustrative history of the ancient Egyptians does not point to a time
before the reed was used as a pen. The various sculptures, carvings,
pottery and paintings, exhibit the scribes at work in their avocations,
recording details about the hands and ears of slaughtered enemies, the

numbers of captives, the baskets of wheat, the numerous animals, the
tribute, the treaties and the public records. These ancient scribes
employed a cylindrical box for ink, with writing tablets, which were
square sections of wood with lateral grooves to hold the small reeds for
writing.
During the time Joseph was Viceroy of Egypt under Sethosis I, the first
of the Pharaohs, B. C. 1717, he employed a small army of clerks and
storekeepers throughout Egypt in his extensive grain operations. The
scribes whose duties pertained to making records respecting this
business, used both red and black inks, contained in different
receptacles in a desk, which, when not in use, was placed in a box or
trunk, with leather handles at the sides, and in this way was carried
from place to place. As the scribe had two colors of ink, he needed two
pens (reeds) and we see him on the monuments of Thebes, busy with
one pen at work, and the other placed in that most ancient pen-rack,
behind the ear. Such, says Mr. Knight, is presented in a painting at Beni
Hassan.
The Historical Society of New York possesses a small bundle of these
pens, with the stains of the ink yet upon them, besides a bronze knife
used for making such pens (reeds), and which are alleged to belong to a
period not far removed from Joseph's time. The other history of ink,
long preceding the departure of Israel from Egypt, and with few
exceptions until after the