We'll likely never know exactly when mankind began using inks for expressing ideas. Nor is it likely that we can guess what, if any, pictorial communication was used prior to the first human impressing a sooted hand upon a cave wall. The history of writing itself becomes a bit more clear with the arrival of the first cuniform tablets. By the time we get to our period of interest, however, we have individuals not only making ink, but writing the process down for posterity.
Ink, the word, derives from incausium, refering to the product's ability to "burn into" the writing surface. Different types of ink will have different abilities to sink or soak into the writing surface; too, different surfaces will allow penetration of some types of ink, while repelling other types of inks. For instance, gum-based inks do well on a porous sufface, such as papyrus; on a hard, parchment-type of surface, gallic inks do better.
Here are some ink recipes, most from various pre-1600 sources. Read them over, compare them, chose some to try. As you study these recipes, you will note that many are similar. Enjoy your experiments, and have fun!
{NOTE: The following links are hosted at other sites; please use your back key to return here.}
A traditional ink of black walnuts here.
The ink from Theophilis: click here. Also two traditional inks.
The ink from a Persian Scribe. Also some very good advice on the process and a couple of modern ink recipes.
Elsewhere on this site, I have ink recipes online as part of other articles. Click here for two recipes from the sixteenth century Booke of Secrets and note the first three entries in the file here to find three recipes from another sixteenth century book, The Arte of Limming. Remember to use your browser's back function to return to this article.
Here is the recipe from The Göttingen Model Book:
The smoke black is best for illuminating. You shall soak it for fourteen days and every day pour off the water and pour pure well water over it; and you shall grind it well with with gum water and temper it therewith, not too strong, that it flows wll from the pen....
This ink was primarily of use in illuminating; paper, sufficiently porous for a gum-based ink such as this, was not generally in use for books at the time the Model Book was written. Gallate inks, however, didn't perform well when used to outline gold or as part of a painted piece. The componants of the ink are very simple; lamp black, made by collecting the soot from a burning candle, and gum arabic dissolved in water. This carbon-based ink is still the basis upon which modern stick inks are made.
A recipe from 1540, with modern measurements defined:
Soak 3 oz. galls coarsely crushed in 1 5/8 pints rainwater. Leave in the sun 1 or 2 days. Add 2 oz. copperas, finely crushed, stir well with a fig stick. Leave in the sun 1 or 2 days. Add 1 oz. gum arabic and leave 1 day in the sun.
Here we have an ink base of both iron-gall and gum, combining the best of both worlds--perhaps.
Another two inks (an iron-gall and gum ink, and a gall and size ink) comes from the Strasburg Manuscript, written sometime in the 15th century.
If you want black ink, good for writing letters, take two parts oak apples, one part vitrol of iron, and the fourth part gum arabic. If you want the ink to be exceptionally black, add one fifth part more of liquid vitrol. All of these must be ground up into a fine powder and this must be put into a cooking pot with some lourinden water with it. This must be allowed to cook as long as you would boil fish and must not boil over. Add to it a small glass of vinegar and take the ink off the fire and stir it until it is cold, for if you let a skin form on it, it will be no good... If you want to make an ink out of oak apples, take as much of the cores as would equal two hens eggs and 1/2 mos of wine and a zekel of parchment clippings and boil them up in a glazed pot till well dissolved, then take the size of a walnut of atramentum and heat this over a fire, crush it in a bowl and throw it into the ink and stir it together, taking care that it does not boil over. When it is cooked enough, go on stirring it until it is cold and it will be good for painting.
From The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount, ANNO 1558, Reprinted in 1975 by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Ltd., Amsterdam: ISBN 90 221 0707 8
To Make ynke, or a colour to wryte with, in a verye good perfection.
Take good Galles, and breake theim in three or foure pieces, that is to say, stampethem slightly, and put them in a fryinge panne, or some other yron panne, with a litle Oyle, frieng them a litle, then take a pounde of them, and put it in some vessel leaded, pouringe into it as muche white wine as wyll cover it over, more then a good hand breadth. After, take a pounde of Gomme Arabick, well stramped, and eyghte onces of Vitriole well made in poulder: myre all well together and set in the sunne certaine dayes, stering it as often as you may: then boyle it a litle if you se that you have neede, and after straine it, and it will be perfecte. And upon the lees that shall remayne in the bottome, you maye poure other wine, and boyle it a little, and strain it. You may put wine upon the same lees as often as you will: that is to say, until you se y the wine whiche you put in, will straine or be coloured no more. Then, mingle al the saied wine, wherinto you shal put other galles, gomme and vitriole as at the beginning then keping it in the Sunne, you shal have a better inck than the fyrste, and do so every day, for the oftener you do it, the better you shall have it, and with lesse coste.
And if you finde it to thicke, or that it be not flowinge ynough, put to it a lyttle cleare lie, whiche will meke it liquide and thinne inoughe. If it be to cleare, adde to it a little gomme Arabick. The galles must be smal, curled and massive within, if they be good. The good vitriolle is always within of a colour like unto the elemyt. The best gomme, is cleere and brittle, that in stamping it, it becommeth a poulder easely, without cleaving together.
Here are some modern instructions for making iron gall ink, hosted at the Iron Gall Ink Corrosion Webpage, a truly excellent site.
From The Handwriting of English Documents by L. C. Hector, 1966. Not precise on the date, but it's clearly a pre-1600 receipt.
To make hynke take galles and coporos or vitrial (quod idem est) and gumme, of everyche a quartryn other helf quartryn, and a halfe quartryn of galles more; and breke the galles a ij. other a iii. and put ham togedere everyche on in a pot and stere hyt ofte; and wythinne ij. wykys after ye mow wryte therwyth.
Yf ye have a quartryn of everyche, take a quarte of watyr; yf halfe a quartryn of everyche, than take half a quarte of watyr.
Copperas (also called vitrol): greenish, crystaline hydrated ferrous sulphate, FeSO4.7H2O.
Oak Galls (also galls, gall nuts, oak apples): A round growth found on a variety of trees, with those found on the oak being preferred; the swelling is caused by the egg-laying activity of the gall wasp (from the Cynipidae family) or the gallfly (Cecidomyiidae). The gall contains a high percentage of tannin.
Tannin: A substance found in a wide variety of plants. It can be extracted by boiling water from the bark of oaks, hemlock, chestnut, maple trees; some types of sumac leaves; coffee; tea; walnuts. The best sources for ink-making purposes is the oak gall. It is the tannin in combination with the iron of the copperas that causes the chemical reation creating the ink. However, tannin is also used as a dye mordant and as a wine-making ingrediant; if you can't locate oak galls in your area, try your local natural-dye shop or homebrewing store.
Use your browser's
back
function or
