Bridging the Borders: Fifty Shades of Black (Ink) - A Workshop

Medieval manuscripts are written with different black and brown ink types, which usually vary between the scribes. Analysing different scribal hands is a basic tool in the study of medieval texts, they are however strongly limited by what the human eye can see. This workshop provides a hand-on introduction on how scholars can benefit from a more profound understanding of inks. Technical developments in the medieval production of such inks were rarely constrained by borders or cultural divisions. Therefore, the content and formal characteristics of ink recipes are mostly independent from the culture that created them and can be used to explore how knowledge and techniques are transmitted, both within the same cultural environments and from one culture to another. This workshop aims to bring participants across another border which is often improperly considered intimidating: the divide between Science and Humanities. Experimentation is crucial in order to truly understand textual recipes from different manuscript cultures, to fully appreciate which ingredients are needed and in which proportions, to assess feasibility, and even to spot errors in the transmission process. Moreover, analytical techniques are needed to identify the materials employed in inks and see how inks used in manuscripts compare with their recipes. Using such techniques, scientific methods can support scholars to differentiate hands or stages of production within the same manuscript, or to compare and identify copies from a same scribe or scriptorium, by discriminating among diverse ink typologies. In the first part of this workshop, the tutors will investigate the nature of ink recipes produced during medieval times from China to Europe, by different cultures and written in different languages (Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Italian), to observe similarities and differences and bring attention to the issues and challenges that those texts pose to the practical replication of their recipes. In the second part, the participants will receive a practical demonstration of ink production and will look at the raw ingredients used. Then, everyone will be invited to test ink samples on a variety of supports (papyrus, parchment and papers) with various writing implements (brush, reed pen, feather). Finally, a practical introduction to reflectography and the handson use of the Dino Lite microscope will allow participants to try out their own inkdetection by analysing known and unknown ink samples with the supplied equipment. Participants are invited to bring examples from their own manuscripts. The workshop is organised by the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ that follows a comparative approach for studying how the production of written artefacts has shaped human societies and cultures, and how these in turn have adapted written artefacts to their needs.

The research for this workshop was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2176 'Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures', project no. 390893796. The research was conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg.