1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

142 5. Medicine and Other Empirical Sciences
Zosimus and other alchemists describe chemical devices such as stills
and sublimation chambers, but although they attribute some to Mary the
Jewess, “sister of Moses”, 77 the device’s names are all Greek. 78 In alchemical
works we almost always encounter these three components: Greek
names, elements of Egyptian magic and references to Judaism. This tripartite
melange clearly points to the trilingual city of Alexandria as the
place from which alchemical knowledge radiated.
The fact that Zosimus’ work contains, apart from the religious elements
and the allegorical symbolism that ever more characterized later works,
information about a variety of chemical compounds and reactions shows page 185
that much knowledge had accumulated in the preceding centuries on this
subject.
It is also significant that the oldest “alchemical” work we have notice
of, the treatise Physica et mystica attributed to Bolos Democritus of Mende
(a city on the Nile delta), probably from the beginning of our era, contains
nothing of later alchemy. From the small portion of it that has survived
and from many references we can deduce that this work dealt with
the preparation of imitation gold, silver, precious stones and purple, describing
traditional procedures used by craftsmen (painters, glassmakers,
metalsmiths) and analyzing possible modifications thereto. Likewise the
Leyden and Stockholm papyri, 79 dating probably from the late third or
early fourth centuries A.D. and usually classified as alchemical works,
have no reference to magic at all: they simply list recipes for preparing
various substances. Their favorite subjects, as in the case of Bolos’ treatise
(extracts of which probably form the substance of these papyri) are imitation
gems and precious metals. What most seems to interest the authors
of these works is the color of the substances produced; this suggests that
the main application of Alexandrian chemistry may have been the manufacture
of dyes and other colorants.
Pliny explicitly distinguishes between natural and artificial pigments 80
and contrasts classical-age painters, who used only four colors, with Hellenistic
ones, who used a great many different hues. 81 Procedures for preparing
artificial pigments are given also by Vitruvius, who attributes some
to the Alexandrians. 82
77 This woman actually lived in Alexandria, probably in the first century A.D., and wrote under
the pseudonym Miriam the Prophetess, sister of Moses.
78 See Mertens’ Introduction technique in [Zosimus/Mertens].
79 P. Leidensis X and P. Holmiensis. For a recent edition of these papyri see [AG].
80 Pliny, Natural history, XXXV, 30.
81 Pliny, Natural history, XXXV, 49-50.
82 Vitruvius, De architectura, VII, xi–xiv.
Revision: 1.9 Date: 2002/09/14 19:12:01