Forty Centuries of Ink / Or, A chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds, introducing incidental observations and deductions, parallels of time and color phenomena, bibliography, chemistry, poetical effusions, citations, anecdotes and curiosa together with some evidence respecting the evanescent character of most inks of to-day and an epitome of chemico-legal ink.

by David Nunes Carvalho

The traditions handed down as of this era relating to the efforts to find some substitute for "Indian" ink which would not only "bind" to parchment and vellum but also would be satisfactory to the priests, are more or less confirmed by the younger Pliny, and makes it safe to assume that several were invented and employed in writing, though possessing but little lasting qualities. Their use and natural disappearance is perhaps the real cause of the fact that there are no original MSS. extant dating as of or belonging to the time immediately preceding or following the birth of Christ, or indeed until long after his death.

There is some authority though for the statement that at this time two vitriolic substances were used in the preparation of black ink,—a slime or sediment (Salsugo) and a yellow vitriolic earth (Misy). This last-named mineral, is unquestionably the same natural chemical mentioned by writers, which about the end of the first century was designated "kalkanthum" or "chalkanthum" and possessed not only the appearance of, but the virtues of what we know as blue copperas or sulphate of copper. It continued in use as long as men were unacquainted with the art of lixiviating salt, or, in other words, as long as they had no vitriol manufactories. Commingled with lampblack, bitumen or like black substances in gummy water, it was acceptable to the priests for ritualistic writings and was in general vogue for several centuries thereafter under the name of (blue) "vitriolic" ink, notwithstanding the fact that there could not be any lasting chemical union between such materials.

It was the so-called "vitriolic" ink, which is said to have "corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus and to have eaten through both parchment and vellum."

These deductions, however, do not agree with some of the historians and scholars like Noel Humphreys, author of the "Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing," London, 1855, a recognized authority on the subject of ancient MSS., who but repeats in part the text of earlier writers, when he says, p. 101:

"Examples of early Greek MSS. of the last century previous to the Christian era are not confined to Egyptian sources; the buried city of Herculaneum, in Italy, partially destroyed about seventy- nine years before the Christian era, and injured by subsequeut eruptions, till totally destroyed by the most violent eruption of Vesuvius on record, that of the year 471 A. D. having yielded several specimens."

The MSS. examples mentioned in the citation, must of necessity refer to specimens of writing made with "vitriolic" and even more ancient inks. They are to be considered in conjunction with the historical fact that these cities were buried for more than sixteen hundred years, counting from the first eruption, before they were brought to light (Herculaneum was discovered A. D. 1713 and Pompeii, forty years later); also that they must have been subjected to intense heat and a long period of decay which could only operate to rob them of all traces of natural ink phenomena. Furthermore, the information Mr. Humphreys seeks to convey, dates contemporaneously with the first eruption of Vesuvius, which occurred seventy-nine years AFTER the Christian era and not seventy-nine years BEFORE it.

This stupendous blunder involves a period of one hundred and fifty-eight years; if it is rectified, the "early Greek MSS." are shown to emanate from the second half of the first century following the birth of Christ and confirming to some extent the deductions hereinbefore made, although the probabilities are that they belong to later periods, included in the third and fourth centuries.

It is affirmed that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius A. D. 79, did not entirely destroy the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and that they emerged from their ruins in the reign of the Emperor Titus. They are also mentioned as inhabited cities in the chart of Peutinger, which is of the date of Constantine.

The next eruption, A. D. 471, was probably the most frightful on record if we exclude the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelee, which occurred in Martinique, West Indies, in 1902, destroying thirty thousand human beings in fifteen minutes and devastating nearly the entire island. From Marcellinus we learn that the ashes of the Vesuvius volcano were vomited over a great portion of Europe, reaching to Constantinople, where a festival was instituted in commemoration of the strange phenomenon. After this, we hear no more of these cities, but the portion of the inhabitants who escaped built or occupied suburbs at Nola in Campania and at Naples. In the latter city, the Regio Herculanensium, or Quarter of the Herculaneans, an inscription marked on several lapidary monuments, indicates the part devoted to the population driven from the doomed city.

The ancient inkstand found at Herculaneum, said to contain a substance resembling a thick oil or paint characteristic of a material which it is alleged, "some of the manuscripts have been written in a sort of relievo, visible in the letters when a 'leaf' is held to the light in a horizontal direction," it is not impossible, indeed it is quite probable, belonged to an era centuries later than the period to which it has been assigned.