ink

In antiquity a liquid material made from soot, gum arabic, and water, used for writing on papyrus. Since this kind of ink does not stick well to leather or parchment, scribes also employed ink made with tannic acid derived from nut galls (oak galls). These were pulverized and then mixed with sulfate of iron and water. Besides black ink, other colors of ink were sometimes used. Titles might be written with red ink, which was made from either cinnabar or miniam. Purple ink was made from a liquid secreted by two kinds of gastropods, the murex and the purpura. For deluxe parchment or vellum manuscripts, scribes occasionally employed silver and gold inks. The Bible refers to the use of ink in (Jer 36:18; 2Cor 3:3; 2John 1:12; and 3John 1:13).