Page - 167 - in The Vienna Genesis - Material analysis and conservation of a Late Antique illuminated manuscript on purple parchment

Sophie Rabitsch, Antonia Malissa, Katharina Uhlir, Martina Griesser, Christa Hofmann 167 Reference ink ST5 In order to obtain reference ink ST5 the recipe H III, XLIII (model 150)29 was used. The original recipe comes from the Heraclius treatises and can be dated to the 11th century. Due to the fact that it only contains a mixture of egg white and artificial urine as a binding agent, ST5 is categorised as pure silver ink. For the production of the reference ink 110 mg of silver chips were scraped off a thin silver plate using a fine iron file. The silver chips obtained were then ground in a marble mortar for 10 minutes without the addition of any grinding aid. During this process the silver turned black. The refined silver was then washed six times and dried using a water bath. Afterwards two drops of egg white30 and two drops of artificial urine31 were added. 29 Trost, 1991, p. 258. 30 Egg white was beaten stiff and stored. After some time liquid separated from the stiffed egg white. Only the liquid part, which was collected at the bottom of the vessel, was used for the ink. 31 For the preparation of artificial urine 0.064 g CaCl2, 0.114 g MgSO4 x H2O, 0.820 g NaCl and 2 g urea were dissolved in 100 ml of water. Fig. 12: Samples ST4_A; as de- scribed in fig. 9. Fig. 13: Samples ST5_A; as de- scribed in fig. 9. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0