Atramentum or atrament, generally means a very black, usually liquid, substance. For example, an octopus may emit a puff of atrament (see cephalopod ink). In

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

, the term ''atramentum'' signified any black colouring substance used for any purpose. The Romans distinguished three principal kinds of atramentum, one called ''librarium'' (or ''scriptorium''), another called ''sutorium'', the third ''tectorium''. Atramentum librarium was the writing ink of Roman times, atramentum sutorium was used by shoemakers for dyeing leather, and atramentum tectorium (or pidorium) was used by painters for some purposes, apparently as a sort of varnish. ''Atramentous'' is a related adjective which means "black as ink". Historically, ''to atrament something'' would mean to write something down with ink. The word ''atrament'' is related to modern English ''atrocious'': both originate from Latin ''atrare'', which presumably meant to make something black. According to the ''Pigment Compendium'', atramentum is a historical pigment or ink based on

carbon black Carbon black (with subtypes acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid cataly ...

. The painter

Apelles Apelles of Kos (; ; fl. 4th century BC) was a renowned Painting, painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom much of modern scholars' knowledge of this artist is owed (''Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis Historia'' 35.36.79–97 and '' ...

has been credited for making ''atramentum elephantinum'' by burning

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

, and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

in his ''

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

'' comments on Apelles' skilled use of black varnish. In one modern commercial usage of the word, atramentum is a deep black colouring substance manufactured by a reaction of an iron salt with

tannic acid Tannic acid is a specific form of tannin, a type of polyphenol. Its weak acidity (Acid dissociation constant, pKa around 6) is due to the numerous phenol groups in the structure. The chemical formula for commercial tannic acid is often given as ...

(the tannic acid for this purpose is often extracted from oak bark). It is a historically important black

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

fundamentally different from carbon black or black

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

pigments. It was also sometimes called "ink stone". It appears greyish-black in water but the colour becomes very deep and lustrous in

linseed oil Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil or flax oil (in its edible form), is a colorless to yellowish oil obtained from the dried, ripened seeds of the flax plant (''Linum usitatissimum''). The oil is obtained by pressing, sometimes followed by ...

. The iron-based atramentum called ''

iron gall ink Iron gall ink (also known as common ink, standard ink, oak gall ink or iron gall nut ink) is a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources. It was the standard ink formulation used in Europe for t ...

'' was in popular use from about the 12th to 19th century. It is currently a subject of conservation effort since many valuable collections are written using it but it causes ''ink corrosion''. In Jewish tradition,

scribes A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and ...

made use of iron sulfate (

chalcanthum In alchemy, chalcanthum, also called chalcanth or calcanthum, was a term used for the compound blue vitriol (CuSO4), and the ink made from it. The term was also applied to red vitriol (a native sulfate of cobalt), and to green vitriol (ferrous ...

) in writing

Torah scrolls A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Interior, Tora Cases.jpg">Torah cases at Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India ...

, which caused the corrosion of the ink.

Shulhan Arukh The ''Shulhan Arukh'' ( ),, often called "the Code of Jewish Law", is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Rabbinic Judaism. It was authored in the city of Safed in what is now Israel by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in V ...

, ''Yoreh De'ah'' (Hil. ''Sefer Torah'' § 271:6).

References

{{reflist Pigments

See also

References