Leiden Papyrus X

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leiden Papyrus X

The Leiden Papyrus X ( Papyrus Leidensis X ), together with the so-called Stockholm Papyrus ( Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis ), is probably the oldest art-technological written source with recipes for the production of paints and metal processing. The text is written in Greek- Demotic language and comes from Egypt in the late 3rd century or early 4th century AD.

origin

Both papyri are said to have been discovered in a burial ground near Thebes at the beginning of the 19th century and came into the possession of the merchant and Swedish vice consul in Alexandria , Giovanni Anastasi, with a larger collection of papyrus .

He left one of the two papyri to the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm , from where it later came to the Victoria Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Uppsala University .

The other of the two papyri was sold by Anastasi in 1828 with the greater part of the collection to the Dutch government and thus came to the University Library in Leiden .

Details

The Leiden papyrus consists of ten sheets, approx. 30 cm × 34 cm in size and folded lengthways. It contains 16 written pages, each written with 28 to 47 lines. It is a copy of 101 recipes for the treatment of precious metals, imitation or forgery of precious metals, precious stones and pearls, for purple dyeing and for the production of textile and paints as well as gold and silver inks. A systematic order is not recognizable. The recipes are usually not very detailed and probably only served as a reminder for users who were already familiar with the treatment of these materials. The presentation is technically and practically oriented, without reference to natural philosophical or religious ideas of alchemy.

expenditure

  • Robert Halleux: Papyrus de Leyde, papyrus de Stockholm, fragments de recettes. Texts établi et traduction (= Les alchimistes grecs. Vol. 1). Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1981, ISBN 2-251-00003-8
  • Conrad Leemans: Papyri graeci Musei antiquarii publici Lugduni-Batavi. Brill, Leiden 1843, pp. 197-259.
  • Earle Radcliffe Caley: The Leyden papyrus X. An English translation with brief notes . In: Journal of Chemical Education. Vol. 3, No. 10, October 1926, pp. 1149-1166.
  • Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis: Recepte for silver, stones and purple. Edited by Otto Lagercrantz , Upsala and Leipzig 1913.

literature

  • Robert Halleux: Methodes d'essai et d'affinage des alliages aurifères dans l'Antiquité et au Moyen Âge . In: Cahiers Ernest Babelon. No. 2, 1985, pp. 39-77.
  • Robert Halleux: L'alchimiste et l'essaieur. In: Christoph Meinel (Ed.): Alchemy in the European history of culture and science (= Wolfenbütteler Forschungen. Vol. 32). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1986, ISBN 3-447-02655-3 , pp. 277-291.
  • Leslie Bernard Hunt: The Oldest Metallurgical Handbook: Recipes of a Fourth Century Goldsmith . In: Gold Bulletin . No. 9, 1976, pp. 24-31.
  • Edmund Oskar von Lippmann: Contributions to the history of the natural sciences and technology. Volume II, Springer, Berlin 1953, pp. 1ff.
  • C. Raub: How to coat objects with gold - Pliny, Leyden Papyrus X, Mappae Clavicula and Theophilus seen with a modern chemist's eyes. In: Christiane Eluère (ed.): Outils et ateliers d'orfèvres des temps ancien (= Antiquités nationales mémoire. Vol. 2). Société des Amis du Musée des Antiquités Nationales et du Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1993, pp. 101-110.
  • Vera Trost: Gold and silver inks. Technological investigations into occidental chrysography and argyrography from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages (= contributions to books and libraries. Vol. 28). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-447-02902-1 .
  • Arie Wallert: Alchemy and medieval art technology. In: Zweder R. von Martels (Ed.): Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Alchemy at the University of Groningen April 17-19, 1989 (= Collection de travaux de l'Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences . Vol. 33). Brill, Leiden [u. a.] 1990, ISBN 90-04-09287-0 , pp. 154-161.
  • Herbert Vogler: Were the ancient dyers alchemists? In: textile finishing. Vol. 27, Issue 11, 1992, pp. 352-358.

Web links