noir de fumée

Ingredients

carbon ink, plant ink, iron gall ink, tannins, metallic salts, oil soot, myrobalan

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Mixed inks are created by combining a complete ink of one typology with additional ingredients from another. Examples include adding tannins to carbon-based Persian ink or incorporating oil soot and myrobalan into a standard hibr (iron gall) preparation (p. 150-151). Al-Marrākušī grouped these into 'simple liquid midad' and 'midad murakkab' (composite ink) (p. 150).

Evidence

"The mixed inks, combining carbon and iron gall inks, were also very popular in the Arab world since they combined the intense black colour and stability of the carbon ink with the indelibility of ferrogallic inks. (p. 150)"

Remarks

Mixed carbon-iron gall inks represent roughly 14 percent of collected Arabic formulas, while mixed carbon-plant inks represent 6 percent (p. 150). These inks were prized for combining the stability of carbon with the chemical bonding (indelibility) of iron gall inks (p. 150).