Carbon ink
Tinta de negro de humo y goma
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Egypt (the Nile valley) and China
- Credited to
- Egyptians; independently, the Chinese
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Suspension of finely ground lampblack in water with gum arabic as a binder, applied with a reed pen or brush. Stable and non-corrosive, its strokes have survived millennia.
China developed soot inks independently; the ink inscriptions on the oracle bones of Anyang (c. 1200 BCE) show an already mature tradition.
What it led to
- Writing on flexible supports (papyrus, leather, plastered wood) and not only by incision
- Red ochre ink for rubrics and titles, the first typographic hierarchy
- The scribe's palette as the emblem of a profession
Built on
- Palaeolithic mineral pigments
- Gum arabic
Made possible
- Papyrusc. 3000 BCE
- Hieratic script
- Egyptian mural painting