TY - JOUR A1 - Ghigo, Tea A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Buzi, P. A1 - Krutzsch, M. A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Rabin, Ira A2 - Friedrich, M. A2 - Quenzer, J. A2 - Wandrey, I. T1 - An Attempt at a Systematic study of inks from Coptic manuscripts T2 - manuscript cultures N2 - It is well documented that throughout Antiquity, ancient Egyptians used mostly carbon inks as a writing material. In Late Antiquity, some metals started to be added to carbon based inks. We have records of five manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection whose carbon inks were found to contain copper Also, lead was recently found as an additive in carbon inks on a charred fragment from Herculaneum. Furthermore, the earliest evidence of iron-gall ink was found in the Book of Proverbs (Codex Ms. Berol. orient. oct. 987) dating to the third fourth centuries ce. It has been suggested that along with carbon and iron-gall inks, there is no reason to think that purely tannin inks were not also in use in Egypt. However, so far, we just have evidence of a copper-tannin ink identified in a number of documents from Egypt in the first third centuries bce. In an attempt to fill this gap in this extremely fragmented scenario during our studies of the socio-geographic history of inks, we arrived at the conclusion that the continuous production of Coptic manuscripts from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages offers a unique opportunity for the historical study of inks across a large geographic area. PB - Universität Hamburg CY - Hamburg KW - Archaeometry KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Inks PY - 2018 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45817 AN - OPUS4-45817 SN - 1867-9617 VL - 2018 IS - 11 SP - 157 EP - 163 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany