indigo

Africa
9th Century
Source: Olsen, R. B. (2024). Beyond Words: Calligraphy from the World of Islam. Orientations, 55(4), 2-9.
Recipe Details

Ingredients

indigo

Preparation Steps

The parchment support for the 'Blue Qur'an' was deeply dyed using indigo, an organic blue colorant. This served as a saturated background to enhance the visibility and prestige of the gold and silver script (p. 6).

Original Recipe Text

The parchment support for the 'Blue Qur'an' was deeply dyed using indigo, an organic blue colorant. This served as a saturated background to enhance the visibility and prestige of the gold and silver script (p. 6).

Evidence

"The leaf itself has been dyed blue with indigo, earning its parent manuscript the name ‘The Blue Qur’an’."

Remarks

The production of such dyed manuscripts was extremely costly; the parent manuscripts for these leaves comprised hundreds of leaves, requiring the hides of several hundred sheep (p. 6).

Scientific Analysis
Certainty Level
Inferred
Instrumentally Verified
Not Verified
Metadata
Material Type
pigment
ColorBlue
RegionAfrica
Approx. Year850
Source Information
AuthorOlsen, R. B.
CollectionNorth Africa
Language
N/A
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