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Ink

The power of ink may be summed up best by Ahmad ibn al-Qadi, a writer in the court of Moroccan Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur during the late 1500s: “The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr.”¹

 While it’s one thing to have thoughts and plans, it’s quite another to share them clearly with others—especially if distance is involved. For most cultures, a system of marks was developed so that receivers could decipher and understand what a sender was trying to communicate. These systems of writing all required ink—whether to use on cave walls, papyrus, bamboo, parchment (a form of leather), or paper.

Ink has two requirements: a pigment for the color and a binding agent to make it adhere to its preferred surface. Although ink can be many colors, black has tended to be the mainstay. In order for color to move fluidly from the writing implement to the writing surface, it needed to be thinned dramatically, and black is the color that still remains legible after being highly diluted.

The Egyptians developed writing sometime prior to 3000 B.C. They believed the god Thoth invented writing and called their hieroglyphic script mdju netjer (words of the gods). Egyptians made ink by burning organic material like wood or oil, then scraping the carbon residue and mixing it with water. A plant gum was added to keep the pigment from clumping.

 The Chinese credit Tien-Tchen with the invention of ink around 2697 B.C. Like the Egyptian ink, its black color was attributed to carbon. In 1738, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, a French Jesuit historian, described the Chinese manufacturing process. Large amounts could be produced by placing an iron cover in the shape of a funnel over a vessel full of oil. Several wicks in the oil were lighted, and the resulting smoke captured in the funnel. When enough soot had deposited, the funnel was taken off and the soot gently brushed with a goose feather onto a sheet of paper. This very fine soot made an ink that was more desired and more valuable than coarser soot-based ink. According to Du Halde, Europeans tried to imitate the Chinese ink, but without success. Only the Chinese ink was a deep and true black and remained permanent.²

Traditional Chinese ink was left to dry into a hardened, easily transported inkstick. The inkstick then could be scraped and reconstituted with water for the desired amount and consistency. Curiously, Chinese ink is referred to as India ink. Although the Chinese invented India ink (also called lampblack), the English term India ink became standard usage due to materials being traded with the British through India. India ink is still in use after 5,000 years.

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press in 1450, water-based ink simply ran off the metal typeface. Gutenberg created a new ink using an oil-based alternative. In 1455, Gutenberg completed printing approximately 180 copies of the Bible, and the rest is history—but the history of the importance of the printing press and the production and distribution of books throughout Europe and the world would be incomplete without ink.³

In keeping with the purpose of ink, your deep, softened-black Turncoat Ink on your leather furniture will communicate your style beautifully.