Soot, vitriol, indigo, and organic dyes

Ingredients

soot, vitriol, gall, gum Arabic, myrtle leaves, dodder of thyme, woad leaves, saffron, rock sugar (sugar candy), henna, indigo, musk, rock salt

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Reconstructed from Recipe 5.VIII: 2g soot, 2g vitriol, 4g gall, 8g gum Arabic, 1g myrtle leaves, 0.5g dodder of thyme, 1g woad leaves, 0.5g saffron and rock sugar, 1g henna. Galls are broken and placed in 10 portions of water. Myrtle, henna, woad, dodder of thyme, and saffron are brayed separately and added to gall water. The bowl is left under sunlight for a few days to soften ingredients and extract essence, then boiled. Soot and gum Arabic are prepared as carbon ink. The boiled/filtered content is added to the soot-gum mortar and brayed. Vitriol is added and brayed for one hour (p. 142).

Evidence

"It gets its name from the blue-green shade it is said to have. This ink is a variation of the carbo-tannate-vitriol ink... peacock ink has the highest quality; it will remain on paper for many years, and if the paper comes in contact with water, the ink would not run."

Remarks

Master calligraphers like Sayrafi and Heravi considered it the highest quality. Dodder of thyme acts as a thickener; woad, myrtle, and henna are colorants (p. 143). FCIR shows it as brown (p. 151).