The making of black inks in an Arabic treatise by al-Qalalūsī dated from the 13th c.: reproduction and characterisation of iron-gall ink recipes

Heritage Science

Research

Márcia Vieira¹  Maria J. Melo¹  Hermine Grigoryan¹  Paula Nabais¹  Rafael Javier Díaz Hidalgo²  Ricardo Córdoba³  Sara Fani⁴  Hossam Al-Abbady⁵  Vanessa Otero⁶  Natércia Teixeira⁷ 

[1] DCR and LAQV-REQUIMTE, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, 2829-516, Caparica, Portugal;DCR and LAQV-REQUIMTE, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, 2829-516, Caparica, Portugal;Departamento de Historia. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain;Departamento de Historia. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain;Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Naples, Italy;Department of History and Archeology, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt;LAQV-REQUIMTE VICARTE, and DCR, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, 2829-516, Caparica, Portugal;LAQV-REQUIMTE, DQB, Faculty of Sciences, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, s/n, 4169-007, Porto, Portugal;

关键词: Iron gall inks;    Technical literature;    Recipes;    Conservation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40494-022-00823-1

 received in 2022-08-04, accepted in 2022-10-08,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

For the first time, this paper systematises the medieval preparation of black writing inks found in the important thirteenth century Andalusian technical treatise written by Muhammad ibn Idrīs ibn al-Qalalūsī (1210–1308). We present the Arabic version of this extraordinary text (‘The gifts of the wise men on the curiosities of the substances’), and its first English translation, as well as discuss key aspects of the processes that remain missing or are unclear indications. In this work, we studied the iron gall inks based on galls, where no other phenolic source is present. In this pedagogical treatise, the recipes for these black iron-gall inks are organised and classified by the gallnuts extraction method used: boiling (decoction), squeezing and infusion, with water being the only solvent used. The inks selected were reproduced and characterised through a multi-analytical approach. Quantification was performed by HPLC–DAD (high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detectors in the UV–VIS), showing that gallic acid is a minor compound in the gall extracts prepared following al-Qalalūsī instructions. In all the recipes, the higher concentration compounds in the gall extracts are the gallotannins pentagalloylglucose and hexagalloylglucose, ranging from 79 to 50% of the phenolic compounds. This supports the results of Raman and infrared spectroscopies. A comparison with medieval Iberian recipes was also done, which served to reinforce our previous results that show water as the sole solvent extracts with much lower yields than mixed solvents (water plus white wine or vinegar).

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

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