Soot and vitriol

Ingredients

soot, vitriol, gall, gum Arabic powder

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Ingredients (Recipe 3.I): 1g soot, 1g vitriol, 2g gall, 4g gum Arabic powder. Hot water is added to gum Arabic, stirred, and added to soot to bray. Separately, galls are weighed, broken, boiled, and filtered. The gall water is added to the soot-gum mortar while braying. Finally, vitriol is added and the braying and whipping process is repeated. The ink is bottled and shaken (p. 138).

Evidence

"The Persians... managed to create a new type of ink by integrating the two together. ... The first appearance of this ink dates back to the tenth century where Ibn Muqla Farsi (d. 930) added carbon to the common iron gall ink."

Remarks

This ink combines the stability of carbon with the penetration of iron gall. It appeared maroon under FCIR (p. 151). It was very hard to remove through mechanical means and is very stable in contact with water (p. 152).