Innovation No. 35 of 77 in the book
Ink
Carbon-based ink that remains readable today
- When
- c. 3000 BCE
- Dynasty
- 1st Dynasty
- Era
- Early Dynastic Period
The black ink Egyptians mixed around 3000 BCE was so good that their writing is still crisp today.
The recipe: fine soot ground with a little plant gum and water, dried into cakes a scribe rewetted like a modern watercolor. Carbon doesn’t fade, so the words survived the millennia.
For red — headings and important words — they swapped in ochre. The very first ‘rubric,’ the red heading, is Egyptian.
The ink that carried human knowledge for 5,000 years was blended on the Nile.
Inked inscriptions survive on stone vessels and pottery from the late Naqada III period, around 3200 to 3000 BCE, before the First Dynasty. Blank scribe palettes with circular wells for ink cakes come from First Dynasty tombs at Saqqara. Laboratory analysis identifies pure carbon soot bound with a plant gum, usually gum arabic. Mesopotamian cuneiform was pressed into clay without ink at all, and Chinese inks do not appear until the Shang Dynasty, around 1600 BCE.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why has Egyptian ink survived so well?
Because carbon is inert. The iron-gall inks developed in late antiquity and medieval Europe are acidic and slowly eat through the page they sit on. Carbon soot does nothing to its surface, so it simply stays put.
What was red ink used for?
Signalling. Black carried ordinary prose; red marked headings and, in temple and astronomical calendars, the unlucky days — so a reader could scan a page and see at a glance whether a date was favourable.