carbon black

Ingredients

soot, hemp oil, linseed oil, beeswax, naphtha, kerosene, gum Arabic, dough ball

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Soot, the main ingredient, is obtained by burning substances such as linseed oil, beeswax, naphtha, or kerosene. Specifically, the lampblack is produced by collecting soot deposited on an inverted earthenware bowl from a lamp burning hemp oil. The collected soot is then baked in the center of a dough ball to extract oil residues, resulting in a pigment consisting largely of amorphous carbon, a deep black powder (p. 2). Gum Arabic is used to bind the carbon particles to the paper (p. 2).

Evidence

"the other is ink prepared with soot called lampblack ink... The chemical name of lampblack ink is carbon black. It is very stable being unaffected by light, air, hot concentrated acids and alkalis."

Remarks

Lampblack ink is highly stable and resistant to chemical attack but sensitive to water and easily smeared (p. 2). Historically, Ottoman calligraphers utilized their tongues to correct mistakes in lampblack ink, leading to the idiom 'licking ink' (p. 2).