The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis (also known as the Stockholm papyrus) is a collection of craft recipes compiled in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. It is written in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

. The Stockholm papyrus has 154 recipes for dyeing, coloring gemstones, cleaning (purifying) pearls, and imitation gold and silver. Certain of them may derive from the Pseudo-Democritus. Zosimos of Panopolis, an Egyptian

alchemist Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

of , gives similar recipes. Some of these recipes are found in medieval Latin collections of technological recipes, notably the Mappae clavicula.

Leyden papyrus X The Leyden papyrus X (P. Leyden X) is a papyrus codex written in Greek at about the end of the 3rd century A.D.E.R.Caley, ''The Leyden Paprus X: An English Translation with Brief Notes''p.1149 "These two papyri have, however, upon the basis of unque ...

derives from the same (or very similar) sources, and is written in a similar (possibly the same) hand, using chemically identical ink. The Stockholm papyrus and Leyden papyrus X were both found in Thebes by Giovanni Anastasi, who donated the Leyden papyrus to the Dutch government in 1828 and the Stockholm papyrus to the Swedish government in 1832. The Stockholm papyrus was first published by Otto Lagercrantz in 1913. Whereas Leyden papyrus X deals with metallurgy, the Stockholm papyrus deals with gems, pearls and textile dyeing.

References

Sources

* Caley, E. R. (1927) “The Stockholm Papyrus : An English Translation with brief notes” ''Journal of Chemical Education'' IV:8 : 979–1002.
Lagercrantz, Otto (1913) ''Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis'', Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksells (Edition and German Translation)

External links

* Alchemical documents Art technological sources Chemistry literature Papyri from ancient Egypt Greek alchemy {{AncientEgypt-stub