Ink for Owners of Codices

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Take crushed green gallnuts, one part. Pour five parts of water over it and cook it until it becomes one and a half parts or one part. Clarify it and place it in a glass bottle. Take vitriol and place it in a vessel and pour some of that water over it and place it in the sun for three days or four. Then take some of the gallnut water and some of the vitriol and mix them. You will have taken Gum Arabic and dissolved it in that water and left it in the sun for a day or more until it dissolves. Then take from the two parts combined, shake it well, and write with it. If you want it to be an intense black, add half an *uqiyyah* of burnt, ground *halfa* grass to it and write with it.

Remarks

*Halfa* is a plant with sharp edges like the leaves of the palm and reeds, growing in waterlogged areas.