Plain Roman inkpot

[Caesius Antonius]

Salvet' omnes,

I'm looking for information for an ink pot appropriate for a 1st century century-level legionary administrative clerk (subcornicularius? scribellus?) stationed on the Northern British frontier. Imagine the miles who writes up the fair-copies of the centurion's manpower and incident reports and forwards them to the cornicularius at the legion-level, et al.

What little I've seen on the web are fancy little bronze numbers that are beyond my capacity to fabricate. I imagine wood or horn would be ideal as both inexpensive and easy to produce and more durable than ceramics.

Any advice/pointers?

Maximas gratias vobis ago.

[Restitvtvs]

Interesting question.

Most Roman inkpots I've seen were either ceramic, glass, or bronze. Regardless, I googled "Roman" and "inkpots".

Greco-Roman Egypt language & education webpage: [url:274dcb2a]http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/lecture/clar_ex3.html[/url]

About 4/5's of the way down that webpage, dated to between 1st c. BC and 4th c. AD.:



Not bad. Simple. Functional. Less brittle than ceramic.

For anyone interested, one of my favorite ceramic examples: [url:274dcb2a]http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/item1/25421[/url]

[url:274dcb2a]http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/walespast/article.shtml?id=61&image=2[/url]



Personalized inkpot, UK, 1-3 c AD: [url:274dcb2a]http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/p/pottery_ink-well.aspx[/url]

More complex ceramic model, but not too difficult: [url:274dcb2a]http://www.potsherd.uklinux.net/atlas/types/sigillata/index.php?more=RT13[/url]

Bronze example, France, 100-50 BC: [url:274dcb2a]http://www.larsdatter.com/tablets.htm[/url]

[M. Demetrius]

And the ink? Was it made from lampblack and oil? or what?

[Wes]

Oak galls make a nice mellow colored ink. I have tons in my yard if anybody wants some.

[Restitvtvs]

Sources differ. For the first century, some sources say oak galls, gum arabic, and water. Most sources say lampblack (from olive oil lamps, chimneys [pine wood yielded more soot than most woods], and other sources), gum arabic, honey, wine, vinegar, and/or water. Some say either or both of the above, plus some oil and/or shrub or tree resin (particularly pine). (Caution: oil makes the ink smear / smudge a more easily.)

EDIT to add links:

Ink (Wikipedia article)

How to Make Ink (KNAW NL) Great links on the navigation bar (in the left margin).

Article by Alexander Allen, in Smith's Dictionary Greek and Roman Antiquities (1875), in LacusCurtius (paste this entire link into your web browser [problem with the link's asterisk here]): http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... entum.html

Roman ink (MyLearning.Org, Yorkshire, UK)

Fourty Centuries of Ink (David N. Carvalho)

Ancient and Modern Ink Recipes (David N. Carvalho)

For anyone interested, other ink recipes: [url:ifu29l17]http://www.mspong.org/cyclopedia/inks.html[/url]

[Peroni]

I can get you those in terra sigillata...