In recent years the value of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of ancient texts and material culture of writing has been increasingly stressed by scholars (see e.g. M. Lyons and R. Marquilhas [edd.], Approaches to the History of Written Culture: a World Inscribed [2017], p. 16). The present volume places itself in this emerging literature, proposing a series of thought-provoking case studies that aim to demonstrate the efficacy, or the potential, of experimental techniques and scientific analyses as well as new philological or text-based methodologies applied to the study of ancient writing. In the introduction Raggetti emphasises that the textual aspect of writing and its material component never existed in isolation; therefore, experts of textual and technical analyses (i.e. philologists, archaeologists and chemists) should inform each other. Replication – here defined as the reproduction of the material reality of the text – is encouraged as a most useful research method.
The eight contributions are arranged chronologically, from the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman period to the thirteenth-century Arabo-Islamic tradition. The order of the chapters is particularly well thought out, as it progressively introduces the history and basic principles of ancient writing and ink-making before moving on to more complex analyses and discussions, which could otherwise result in confusion for non-specialists.
In the first chapter K. Weirauch and M. Cammarosano engage with the scarce archaeological, textual and iconographic evidence of Mesopotamian wax tablets, answering a series of technical questions about their manufacturing and use through well-designed experiments. The authors show that pure beeswax is unsuitable for writing cuneiform due to its stickiness and that the addition of pigments – particularly ochre – is functional to stabilise the paste. Different hypotheses explaining the role of a groove on Mesopotamian styli are also tested (functional vs aesthetic); metal and bone replicas were employed in the experiments, but, unfortunately, no discussion is dedicated to the differences in performance, and the results seem to focus only on the metal ones, though the single archaeological example shown is made of ivory. The second part of the chapter reports the positive outcomes of ‘WoW! Writing on Wax’, an interdisciplinary pedagogical project in which six-grade students learned about ancient writing technologies by reproducing wax pastes and testing them in a lab.
In the second chapter M. Blanco Cesteros challenges the traditionally unquestioned assumption that blood appears frequently as a ritual ingredient for red inks in the Greek magical papyri from Egypt. Through a brilliant comparative analysis between recipes from the magical texts and several passages from non-magical texts, the author shows that the term ‘blood’ in recipes possibly stands for completely different substances. For instance, haima drakonteion (appearing in PGM IV 1999), usually interpreted as snake blood, is described in the first-century ce treatise Cyanide and by Aetius of Amida as a vegetal substance. More interestingly, the expression ‘blood of x’ appears multiple times in a list of code names (PGM XII 407–35), employed by ‘magicians’ to deliberately conceal the real name of the substances they were using. This polysemic reality in magic can explain the otherwise improbable presence of the ‘blood of falcon’ and ‘of eel’ in Demotic recipes, as both animals were sacred in Egypt.
The third chapter, by V. Damiani, is an informative and up-to-date overview on the state of research of the Herculaneum papyri. It summarises the history of the papyri's discovery (well-known to most Classicists, but perhaps unfamiliar to experts of the technical sciences), provides a useful introduction to the differences between carbon-based, metallic and mixed inks, and an evaluation of all the non-invasive imaging technologies that have been recently employed to read the papyri (X-ray techniques, MRI, CT and XCPT). Damiani highlights the importance of the discovery of lead in the ink composition of some Herculaneum fragments; this element can be used as a contrast agent to distinguish writing on the rolls through exposure to synchrotron light, and it represents an interesting proof that not only carbon-based inks were used in Herculaneum.
I. Rabin, in Chapter 4, focuses on the different ink types in use from late antiquity to the Middle Ages, presenting the outcomes of a study on selected manuscripts combined with a survey of ancient literature. The chronology, composition, optical properties and available recipes of carbon, plant and iron-gall inks are presented, and an original three-step analytical protocol for their identification is proposed. Rabin systematically highlights gaps in the literature (e.g. a study of the historical use of plant inks is missing, little attention has been dedicated to mixed inks) and provides interesting suggestions for future projects (an ink database recording information from well-dated manuscripts could be built as a dating/localising tool for undated manuscripts).
In the fifth chapter M. Martelli explores the role and transmission of ink recipes in the Christian Near-Eastern alchemical discourse, analysing the contents of three Syriac alchemical manuscripts dated to between the fifteenth and sixteenth century (British Library Egerton 709 and Oriental 1593, Cambridge MS Mm. 6.29). The section focusing on the Cambridge manuscript is the most insightful: Martelli provides a first edition of sixteen recipes from the Book on Inks, particularly relating to golden inks, highlighting parallels with the Greek and Latin tradition (i.e. Graeco-Egyptian Leiden Papyrus X, Byzantine alchemical manuscripts and the early medieval Mappae Clavicula). Martelli interestingly argues that the striking similarities between Syriac and Latin material ‘cannot be properly assessed without supposing common Greek sources’ (p. 5) and that the Syriac manuscript enriches the information contained in these sources with additional procedures concerning metallic inks.
Chapter 6, by S. Fani, is an important reminder that an assessment of the literary dimension of ancient technical literature is crucial for a correct interpretation of its contents, aims, cultural context and transmission. Such analysis also allows the distinction of the original creation of an author from the interventions made by later compilers and copyists. Fani demonstrates this concept by analysing four Arabo-Islamic compilations of ink recipes produced in the thirteenth century and attributed to single authors – namely the Zīnat al-kataba, Umdat al-kuttāb, Kitāb al-azhār fī ʿamal al-aḥbār and Tuḥaf al-ḫawāṣṣ fī ṭuraf al-ḫawāṣṣ. The aims and competence of the authors are informed by the biographical data contained in their introductions and by the macrostructure of the treatises (i.e. how recipes are ordered according to different criteria). Within the transmission of a text, alterations to the syntactical structure or to the internal organisation, the appearance of dialectal vocabulary and the presence of explanatory additions are instead signs of redactional interventions, which inform us how the treatises were constructed or modified by compilers. Finally, the rhetorical elements in the introductions help collocating these treatises on ink-making within a wider philosophical background, allowing us to appreciate that they were not only conceived as mere handbooks for craftsmen, but literate productions aimed at educating the erudite on the knowledge available on this subject.
Chapter 7, by C. Colini, successfully reaches its aim to demonstrate not simply the usefulness, but remarkably the necessity of marrying textual criticism with experimental approaches in the study of Arabo-Islamic treatises on writing. The discussion presents six case studies in which ancient black ink recipes have been tested in order to assess their feasibility as well as the properties and function of their ingredients. Replicating the inks has allowed the uncovering of errors or understanding the presence of variants in the transmission (cases 1–2); distinguishing the contributions of authors with technical skills who were testing their recipes from mere compilers’ interventions (3); shedding light on ambiguous or difficult terminology (such as the terms for ‘vitriol’, case 4); the production of samples that can be compared with historical inks to test hypotheses on composition (5) or used to determine the limitations of common non-invasive analytical equipment (e.g. Near infrared and UV reflectography, Raman spectroscopy and Surface-Enhanced-Raman-Spectroscopy, Infra-Red and Mass Spectroscopy).
The last chapter is by Raggetti, and it proposes an interesting ‘philological experiment’ (p. 162). This is a critical edition of 42 ink recipes from a thirteenth-century Arabic treatise designed specifically to facilitate the experimental replication of the recipes and to encourage interdisciplinary research between philologists and chemists. The treatise is the Kitāb ʿuyūn al-ḥaqāʾiq wa-īḍāḥ al-ṭarāʾiq, by the alchemist Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿIrāqī. Raggetti's ‘laboratory edition’ is based on eight witnesses of the text, which are briefly described; for each one Raggetti gives precise references as to where they can be consulted (most of them are accessible online). Firstly, the edition appropriately explains the role of this collection of recipes – for coloured metallic and invisible inks – in the context of al-ʿIrāqī's larger alchemical treatise; a summary of all chapters in the treatise is given as an appendix. Then the text of all recipes is presented, accompanied by an English translation and by an apparatus which, instead of listing linguistic variants as usual, provides alternative readings that can be relevant from a technical point of view. It also includes interesting loci similes from other Arabic, Greek and Latin texts. Raggetti's edition shows very well that the high degree of variance in the transmission of this text poses complex challenges to our interpretation of its technical contents and that an interdisciplinary approach involving replication is necessary.
Such a comprehensive and original volume focusing on ancient inks and ink-making technologies – and particularly on a series of ancient Arabo-Islamic treatises on ink-making, which are currently under-represented in the scholarly discussion and were lacking a critical edition – was needed. An additional value of the work resides in the numerous suggestions for future research proposed in almost every chapter as well as in the frequent presence of large coloured illustrations showing the outcomes of the experiments, which not only clarify the arguments but also constitute a convenient reference for future comparative research. This publication certainly reaches its goal of demonstrating that ‘inks and their traces are a productive field, a meaningful example and a fruitful opportunity to … draw fresh methodological inspiration’ (p. 5).
