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Mustafa Marie – Egypt Today
A group of Danish and French scholars discovered the formation of red and black inks on ancient Egyptian papyri, which led to a number of hypotheses about writing practices in that ancient era.
The analysis, based on synchrotron techniques, was conducted by researchers in Grenoble, France, and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. It showed that lead was probably used as a desiccant rather than as a pigment, similar to its use in Europe during the 15th century development of oil painting.
In ancient Egypt, Egyptians used black ink to write the main text, while they often used red ink to highlight titles, instructions or key words.
Over the past decade, many scientific studies were conducted to clarify the invention and history of ink in ancient Egypt and in the cultures of the Mediterranean.
According to Phys.org. scientists studied red and black ink in papyrus, using x-rays, from the library of the Temple of Tebtunis (Umm Al-Barijat) in Fayoum. It is the only large-scale institutional library known to have survived since ancient Egypt.
Scientists examined 12 ancient Egyptian papyrus fragments, all of which were engraved in red and black inks.
“The very amazing thing was that we found that lead was added to the ink mixture, not as a dye, but as an ink dryer, so that the ink remains on the papyrus”, said Marine Cote, a scientist at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and co-author of the study.
The researchers came to this conclusion, because they did not find any other type of lead, such as white lead or aluminium, which should be present if lead was used as a pigment.
“The fact that the lead was not added as a dye, but as a dryer indicates that the ink has a completely complex recipe that no one can manufacture”, adds Thomas Christiansen, an Egyptologist from the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the study.
Marine Cote says, “In the 15th century, when artists rediscovered oil painting in Europe, the challenge was to dry the oil out in a reasonable time. Painters realized that some compounds of lead, could be used as effective dryers. This discovery was only possible through the different techniques that the team used at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, such as the X-ray microscopy, ID21, to study parts of the papyrus”.
