pure red gold (al-ḏahab al-abrīz al-aḥmar)

Ingredients

white fish glue (ghirāʾ al-samak al-abyaḍ), fresh water, ground saffron (zaʿfarān), pure red gold (al-ḏahab al-abrīz al-aḥmar), vitriol, ḫumāhān stone (hematite)

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Prepare white fish glue by cutting it thin and soaking in fresh water for 24 hours until soft. Beat the glue, then melt it over a low fire in a vessel with more water. Add ground saffron to change the color. The mixture is purified through a clean linen cloth. Write with this mixture while the weather is warm (or reheat if cold as it solidifies quickly) (p. 312-313). Once the writing is done, apply thin leaves of pure red gold and press them onto the script. If the gold sinks into the glue, warm it over a fire. After pressing, leave for two days, then burnish with a ḫumāhān stone (p. 313).

Evidence

"If you want to write in gold, then prepare white fish glue that puffs up quickly, cut it as thin as possible, put it in fresh water for one day and one night... add some ground saffron... take some pure red gold beaten into thin leaves, and press it on the writing... burnish it with the ḫumāhān (hematite?) stone."

Remarks

This chrysography technique involves the direct use of gold leaves over a preparatory layer of fish glue and saffron. The ḫumāhān stone used for burnishing is identified by some sources as hematite (p. 313, note 38).