Saturday, September 29, 2007

Ink – One of mankind’s oldest tools, still in use.

Ink is simply a dye or pigment in liquid that is used to mark a surface. Without ink early mankind would not have been able to produce lasting written texts. It is said that the Chinese developed writing inks first to blacken the surfaces of carvings, and it was a mixture of soot from pine smoke, lamp oil, and gelatin from animal skins and musk. Inks have also been made using the black ‘ink’ that some sea creatures produce to confuse enemies. Various cultures eventually developed their own until now we have inks of various types, uses and colors. Romans used soot, glue and water, while medieval Europe used a complex procedure to boil up bark, dry it and salt it and mix it with wine to make ink.

The inks that are often found on printed paper are pigmented View the rest of this article


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