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At the end of the sixteenth century, a number of relics and artefacts were discovered in Granada, Spain. They included what became known as the Lead Books of the Sacromonte, twenty-one written artefacts made of circular lead leaves engraved in archaic Arabic characters. The authorship was attributed to some Arab disciples of St James the Greater considered to be the first evangelisers of the Iberian Peninsula. The texts, the materiality and the circumstances of the discoveries fuelled a debate surrounding their authenticity that lasted more than two centuries, a debate so fierce and controversial that not even papal condemnation in 1682 was able to stop it. Soon after the discoveries were made public, scholars highlighted the many contradictions and errors of a historical, linguistic and theological nature present in the texts, identifying members of the local Morisco community as possible forgers. This article focuses on how the scholarly community of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries handled these findings and looks at the methods employed by the scholars to evaluate the authenticity of the artefacts. It will also look at how the particular interests of the various authorities involved influenced the acceptance or dismissal of relevant academic results.
In this poster we will present some results of a research projects dealing with Arabic recipes of black inks. To improve conservation practices of Arabic manuscripts we have assessed the feasibility of the recipes collected from many Arabic sources on bookmaking and reproduced the most common inks. Ink samples were then artificially aged and analysed using an array of analytical techniques, mostly non-invasive, in order to build a database of Arabic inks and their ingredients and also to verify the detection limits of the portable equipment employed.
We will show procedures and problems concerning the identification of ink types and ingredients using reflectography (in Vis, IR and UV), X-Ray Fluorescence, Infrared and Raman spectroscopy. The focus will be in particular on squid ink and mixed inks – both in the form of carbon inks with the addition of tannins and of a mixture of carbon and iron gall inks – which are particularly difficult to detect. We will also examine the results of iron gall inks made with iron filings or nails instead of vitriol, the various precursor used to extract gallic acid that are mentioned in the sources as surrogates of gall nuts.
In this poster we will present some results of a research projects dealing with Arabic recipes of black inks [1-2]. To improve conservation practices of Arabic manuscripts we have assessed the feasibility of the recipes collected from many Arabic sources on bookmaking and reproduced the most common inks. Ink samples were then artificially aged and analysed using an array of analytical techniques, mostly non-invasive, in order to build a database of Arabic inks and their ingredients and also to verify the detection limits of the portable equipment employed.
We will show procedures and problems concerning the identification of ink types and ingredients using reflectography (in Vis, IR and UV), X-Ray Fluorescence, Infrared and Raman spectroscopy. The focus will be in particular on squid ink [3] and mixed inks – both in the form of carbon inks with the addition of tannins and of a mixture of carbon and iron gall inks – which are particularly difficult to detect [4]. We will also examine the results of iron gall inks made with iron filings or nails instead of vitriol, the various precursor used to extract gallic acid that are mentioned in the sources as surrogates of gall nuts.
[1] A. Schopen, Tinten und Tuschen des arabisch-islamischen Mittelalters, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004
[2] S. Fani, Le arti del libro secondo le fonti arabe originali. I ricettari arabi per la fabbricazione degli inchiostri (sec. IX-XIII): loro importanza per una corretta valutazione e conservazione del patrimonio manoscritto, PhD thesis, Napoli: Università L’Orientale, 2013
[3] S. Centeno, J. Shamir Journal of Molecular Structure, 873 (2008), 149-159
[4] C. Colini et. al, Manuscript cultures, 11 (2018) 43-50
Ink recipes from the islamic era: Texts, manuscripts, ink reproductions and scientific analyses
(2019)
Ink recipes can often be found in Arabic manuscripts. They may be included in treatises of diverse subjects – from handbooks for secretaries or calligraphers to books on arts and crafts, to alchemical and astrological essays. Recipes can also appear, with or without relation to the main text in the manuscript, in the form of lists or collections or even added in empty spaces as single entries. Why were these recipes written down? Were they used by the many professionals dealing with inks in their every-day work? Or were they part of the literary genre of adab with little or no practical application? To answer these questions a research project was set up: ink recipes have been collected from written Arabic sources, their feasibility has been assessed and some of them have been reproduced. These samples were artificially aged and analysed through an array of analytical techniques, most non-invasive and non-destructive, and the results compared to the data obtained by the application of the same analyses on concrete manuscripts. The codicological characteristics of the manuscripts have also been studied. My aim in this talk is to show how such an interdisciplinary approach could be beneficial for the study of material culture.
Fifty shades of black: Typologies and terminology of black inks in the light of new discoveries
(2019)
The identification of the materials constituting an artefact is the basis of any correct conservation project. For this reason (among others) in the last 50 years analytical techniques have been applied to the study of manuscripts. Unfortunately, the scientific investigation of Arabic books is still uncommon, focusing mainly on single case studies of illuminated manuscripts where the black media used to write the text is largely overlooked. This lack of knowledge prompted a recent research in which black ink recipes have been collected from written Arabic sources, their feasibility has been assessed, and some of them have been reproduced. These samples were artificially aged and analysed through an array of analytical techniques, mostly non-invasive and non-destructive, in order to build a database of Arabic inks and their ingredients and to verify the detection limits of the equipment employed. Finally, the results were compared to the data collected from historical manuscripts.
In this talk I will focus on the ink typologies and the terminology (ancient and modern) used to describe them. In particular I will highlight how even the modern classification fails to capture the variety encountered in both recipes and manuscripts, particularly in the light of recent discoveries. I will address especially the terminological and conceptual issues of mixed inks – in the form of carbon inks and tannins, of carbon and iron gall inks, and of carbon and metallic salts –, iron gall inks made without vitriol and iron gall inks made with sources of tannins different from gall nuts.
Papyrus was in use in the Islamic world until the 11th century and few ink recipes collected from treatises about the art of the books are dedicated to this support. But papyrus was also burnt in order to obtain soot used as an ingredient for a particular type of ink (midād al-qarāṭīs). In this talk I will give an overview of the recipes – in particular those by ar-Rāzī –, their context and transmission in order to evaluate this double nature of papyrus, which is considered at the same time a writing support and a material to be recycled. Moreover, I will discuss what kinds of ink are most likely to be found, according to these literary sources, on Arabic manuscripts and documents written on papyrus and compare them to the typologies mentioned for paper and parchment. These results are the premises of a research project starting at the beginning of 2019, in which a number of dated fragments from several European institutions will be analysed with non-destructive techniques in order to establish a profile of the main writing media used in the early centuries of the Islamic Era.
The Interdisciplinary Alchemist: Reproduction and Study of Black Inks from the Islamicate World
(2019)
The identification of the materials constituting an artefact is the basis of any correct conservation project, for this reason (among others) in the last 50 years analytical techniques have been applied to the study of manuscripts. Unfortunately, the scientific investigation of Arabic books is still uncommon, focusing mainly on single case studies, often producing unclear results, especially for black inks. This lack of knowledge prompted a recent research in which black ink recipes have been collected from written Arabic sources on bookmaking, their feasibility has been assessed, and finally some of them have been reproduced. These samples were artificially aged and analysed through an array of analytical techniques, mostly non-invasive and non-destructive, in order to build a database of Arabic inks and their ingredients and also to verify the detection limits of the portable equipment employed. In this talk I will present some instances of how this approach can help textual criticism, for example in evaluating variants and determining the competence of authors and compilers. At the same time the research highlights how much this scientific work depends on textual studies, especially concerning the identification of ingredients. Moreover, I will focus on some of the problematics I faced both during the textual interpretation and the actual reproduction of the recipes and how they influenced the results of the scientific analyses. In particular I’ll look into the role played by the degree of purity of the components and the function (real and perceived) of some of the ingredients.
In this poster we will present some results of a research projects dealing with Arabic recipes of black inks. To improve conservation practices of Arabic manuscripts we have assessed the feasibility of the recipes collected from many Arabic sources on bookmaking and reproduced the most common inks. Ink samples were then artificially aged and analysed using an array of analytical techniques, mostly non-invasive, in order to build a database of Arabic inks and their ingredients and also to verify the detection limits of the portable equipment employed.
First, we will provide an overview of the sources [1-2] employed in the study – dating from 9th to 14th century, although the manuscripts in which they can be found dates up to the 20th century – with an eye on the ink typologies (real and perceived by the compilers). Then we will show how, by reproducing the recipes, it was possible to shed light on some oddities in the procedures and the choice of ingredients. In the end we will discuss problems concerning the identification of ink types and ingredients using reflectography (in Vis, IR and UV), X-Ray Fluorescence, Infrared and Raman spectroscopy. The focus will be in particular on mixed inks – both in the form of carbon inks with the addition of tannins and of a mixture of carbon and iron gall inks – which are particularly difficult to detect [3]. We will also examine the results of iron gall inks made with iron filings or nails instead of vitriol and the various precursor used to extract gallic acid that are mentioned in the sources as surrogates of gall nuts.
[1] A. Schopen, Tinten und Tuschen des arabisch-islamischen Mittelalters, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004
[2] S. Fani, Le arti del libro secondo le fonti arabe originali. I ricettari arabi per la fabbricazione degli inchiostri (sec. IX-XIII): loro importanza per una corretta valutazione e conservazione del patrimonio manoscritto, PhD thesis, Napoli: Università L’Orientale, 2013
[3] C. Colini et. al, Manuscript cultures, 11 (2018) 43-50