“The only antidotes to stupidity and barbarism are education and culture”
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
People, because they like to be together and share, have always needed to talk to each other. That’s how languages and writing started. Writing has been with us for a long time, and how we do it and what we use has changed over time.
To write, you need a few things: something to write on, something to write with, and sometimes ink.
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The first thing people wrote on was baked clay in Mesopotamia. They used a metal or wooden tool to make wedge-shaped marks on the clay tablets.
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In Egypt, they used papyrus (a type of paper made from a plant) and wrote on it with a reed pen called a calamus.
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In ancient Rome, they wrote on thin sheets of metal (mostly lead and bronze) with a metal-tipped punch. They also wrote on stone (like marble, granite, or slate) with a chisel, and on wax tablets with a stylus (a pointed tool).
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Starting in the Middle Ages, people used parchment (made from animal skin) as another thing to write on, instead of papyrus. They used a calamus or a feather from a bird.
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Paper was invented in China in the 2nd century. At first, they used bird feathers, especially from geese, to write on it.
If you use a calamus, a feather, or a brush, you need ink (“a substance that is a bit thick and sticky, and that sticks to something when you use a tool”).
Ink is made of:
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Pigment (natural or made) which gives it color.
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Binder to hold everything together, make it a bit sticky, and stop it from being too watery.
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Mordant to help it stick to what you’re writing on.
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Extra stuff (like things to make it thicker, keep it moist, give it a smell, make it shiny, help it soak in, or change the color a bit). Not all inks have these.
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In Egypt, they used an old black ink (called lampblack) to write hieroglyphs. It was made from a plant-based pigment from burnt wood or charcoal, mixed with gum arabic (a sticky stuff), which made a paste. They would dry it in the sun and then mix it with water in an ink pot to use it.
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“China ink” is similar. It was invented a long time ago (around the 17th century BC) and was made from soot (from burning pine wood), lamp oil, animal glue, and musk (a strong-smelling substance).
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In the Middle Ages, they used iron gall ink on papyrus and parchment. This ink was made from plants, didn’t wash off easily with water, and was dark in color. It was made of tannins (from plants), iron salt, gum arabic, and water.
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When Johannes Gutenberg from Germany invented the printing press in 1440, they started using inks made with oil instead of water-based inks.
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Today, we use synthetic inks in printers, ballpoint pens, and fountain pens. These inks are usually made from a mix of oils and resins. For printers, the main things in the ink are dyes, binders, solvents (liquids that dissolve other things), and other ingredients to make the ink work well.
