Dragon's Tail
10-06-2019, 04:07 AM
A stone tablet from Babylon. Property of Nebuchadnezzar (I), king of Babylon:
For 5 shekels of (crushed) pappardillu stone
(one line unintelligible)
you mix one-third mina of mountain honey, 10 shekels of ta, one sulu of
milk, 4 shekels of red alkali (and) one-half sila of wine in one operation. You test
(the mixture) on [coals in the state of glow] ;
if the coals do not produce a flame it is not reliable ;
if the coals produce a flame it is reliable. (Then), you pour (the mixture)
into a stone bowl of algamis a-stone ; you cover it ; you lute (it) with dough. You
heat it for a full day on a smokeless 1 fire. You take (the mixture) out and... (break)
(break)... for five days, it is (not ?) reliable. You soak it in (liquid) [...]. You boil
alum and... in vinegar. You steep (the stone) in lapis lazuli-colored liquid and place it
in the fire and (then you have) a dusu - colored stone.
---
I've taken the liberty of removing notion marks and reorganizing the text a bit based on the advice in the article, which can be found here: https://archive.org/stream/Oppen1966Alchemy/Oppen_1966_Alchemy_djvu.txt
This text brings some murky problems (or solutions) to the world of alchemy. It seems to be a recipe, or possibly 2 recipes, for producing a false gemstone, which could have been used for bead-making and traded as the genuine article, despite the king knowing it was a deception. That much seems to be the opinion of the author who brought it to light after sitting around in the back of a museum forever. This guy seems to be quite familiar with the gemstone forgeries and trade, suggesting that they aren't something inherently new. The trick was to DYE the material with a TINCTURE.
It also places the origin of alchemy closer to 1200 BCE, before the Egyptians learned the trademarks. At this period, it would have been much easier to dupe unsuspecting traders for valuable items. Alum is mentioned as well, which is a clue that trade with Egypt was well established, and perhaps the Egyptians learned the same trick, using their batteries to forgo gems and silver and straight on to electroplating "gold" artifacts for trade.
It also means that these people had hot furnaces and kilns. At over 1300C, these are hot enough to melt most metals and work with most metallic ores. An important note to add to your collection about technology for the period.
The glass product here isn't really blown or worked, but cast, and appears as a gemstone chunk rather than a precision molded piece, at least that's how it seems to me, so the gem could be sold in whole form and shaped into beads and other ornaments.
Of course, the author also admits that this idea of a "red alkali" was something new at the time of the writing, and other processes used the "ash of plants."
Could be a pre-cursor to the Emerald Tablet. Little side note, dusu stones are believed to be an orange-yellow color and used by lapidaries to represent the sun ;) I'm not sure if any have been recovered, but the Babylonians liked writing about them on ancient tablets.
For 5 shekels of (crushed) pappardillu stone
(one line unintelligible)
you mix one-third mina of mountain honey, 10 shekels of ta, one sulu of
milk, 4 shekels of red alkali (and) one-half sila of wine in one operation. You test
(the mixture) on [coals in the state of glow] ;
if the coals do not produce a flame it is not reliable ;
if the coals produce a flame it is reliable. (Then), you pour (the mixture)
into a stone bowl of algamis a-stone ; you cover it ; you lute (it) with dough. You
heat it for a full day on a smokeless 1 fire. You take (the mixture) out and... (break)
(break)... for five days, it is (not ?) reliable. You soak it in (liquid) [...]. You boil
alum and... in vinegar. You steep (the stone) in lapis lazuli-colored liquid and place it
in the fire and (then you have) a dusu - colored stone.
---
I've taken the liberty of removing notion marks and reorganizing the text a bit based on the advice in the article, which can be found here: https://archive.org/stream/Oppen1966Alchemy/Oppen_1966_Alchemy_djvu.txt
This text brings some murky problems (or solutions) to the world of alchemy. It seems to be a recipe, or possibly 2 recipes, for producing a false gemstone, which could have been used for bead-making and traded as the genuine article, despite the king knowing it was a deception. That much seems to be the opinion of the author who brought it to light after sitting around in the back of a museum forever. This guy seems to be quite familiar with the gemstone forgeries and trade, suggesting that they aren't something inherently new. The trick was to DYE the material with a TINCTURE.
It also places the origin of alchemy closer to 1200 BCE, before the Egyptians learned the trademarks. At this period, it would have been much easier to dupe unsuspecting traders for valuable items. Alum is mentioned as well, which is a clue that trade with Egypt was well established, and perhaps the Egyptians learned the same trick, using their batteries to forgo gems and silver and straight on to electroplating "gold" artifacts for trade.
It also means that these people had hot furnaces and kilns. At over 1300C, these are hot enough to melt most metals and work with most metallic ores. An important note to add to your collection about technology for the period.
The glass product here isn't really blown or worked, but cast, and appears as a gemstone chunk rather than a precision molded piece, at least that's how it seems to me, so the gem could be sold in whole form and shaped into beads and other ornaments.
Of course, the author also admits that this idea of a "red alkali" was something new at the time of the writing, and other processes used the "ash of plants."
Could be a pre-cursor to the Emerald Tablet. Little side note, dusu stones are believed to be an orange-yellow color and used by lapidaries to represent the sun ;) I'm not sure if any have been recovered, but the Babylonians liked writing about them on ancient tablets.