Invisible ink on antique Nile papyrus revealed by multiple methods

EurekAlert! ^ | August 16, 2019 | Dr. Heinz-Eberhard Mahnke

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The first thing that catches an archaeologist's eye on the small piece of papyrus from Elephantine Island on the Nile is the apparently blank patch. Researchers from the Egyptian Museum, Berlin universities and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now used the synchrotron radiation from BESSY II to unveil its secret. This pushes the door wide open for analysing the giant Berlin papyrus collection and many more...

Scholars in ancient Egypt typically wrote with a black soot ink made from charred pieces of wood or bone and which consisted mainly of elemental carbon. "For certain purposes, however, the ancient Egyptians also used coloured inks containing elements such as iron, copper, mercury or lead," Heinz-Eberhard Mahnke explains. If the ancient Egyptian scribes had used such a "metal ink" to inscribe the part that now appears blank on the Elephantine papyrus, then X-ray fluorescence should be able to reveal traces of those metals. Indeed, using the equipment in their laboratory, the researchers were able to detect lead in the blank patch of papyrus...

The analysis at BESSY II did not identify the kind of leaded ink the ancient scribes used to write these characters on the papyrus. Only by using a "Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer" could the scientists of the Rathgen Research Laboratory Berlin finally identify the substance as lead carboxylate, which is in fact colourless...

With their investigation, Dr. Tobias Arlt of Technische Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Heinz-Eberhard Mahnke and their colleagues have pushed the door wide open for future studies to decipher texts even on finely folded or rolled papyri from the Egyptian Museum without having to unfold them and risk destroying the precious finds. The researchers namely developed a new technique for virtually opening the valuable papyri on the computer without ever touching them.

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A team of researchers examined an ancient papyrus with a supposed empty spot. With the help of several methods, they discovered which signs once stood in this place and which ink was used.

Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie

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[mylife]

Tricky damn Faizal.

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The tough part is making corrections -- ****ed invisible erasers...

[BradyLS]

“Drink more—“

There the scroll ends. But “Drink more...”? Drink more what??? We may never know.

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Oxyrhynchus keyword selections:

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Villa of the Papyri keyword selections:

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• UK to 'unroll' papyrus scrolls buried by Vesuvius [Kentucky prof has non-invasive scanning technique [2009]
• Unlocking the scrolls of Herculaneum [2013]
• X-ray technique 'reads' burnt Vesuvius scroll [2015]
• Metallic ink used in the Herculaneum scrolls [2016]