2020/10/26 by Thomas L. Christiansen, Marine Cotte, Wout De Nolf +11 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis #Building materials and conservation #Conservation Techniques and Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.2004534117
openalex publication_date 2020/10/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Significance Ink, invented in ancient Egypt circa 5,000 y ago, is the established and time-honored medium wherewith humankind commits words to writing. A comprehensive synchrotron-based microanalysis of a considerable corpus of ancient Egyptian papyri from the Roman period, inscribed with red and black inks, reveal a hitherto undetected complex composition of inks. Highlighted by the presence of iron, the red color can be attributed to the use of ocher. Unexpectedly, lead is regularly present in both the red and black inks and is associated to phosphate, sulfate, chloride, and carboxylate ions. The analysis shows that lead was probably used as a drier rather than as a pigment, similar to its usage in 15th century Europe during the development of oil paintings.