The Leyden and Stockholm Papyri - University of Cincinnati

plunge the wool in it, lay aside several hours, and you will find the
purple fast.
99. Another (Process)
Taking alkanet, (and) some leontice, strip off the bark, take it and
grind it as fine as stibnite in a mortar. Add to it some hydromel
diluted with water, grind again, place the ground product in a
vessel and boil. When you observe (the liquid) to be lukewarm,
plunge the wool in it (and) let it remain. The wool ought to be
cleaned with fullers plant and thickened. Then take it, plunge it in
lime water; let it soak; take it out; wash thoroughly with some sea
salt (and) dry. Plunge it again in the alkanet and let it remain.
100. Another (Procedure)
Take the juice of the upper part of the alkanet and a solid gall-nut
roasted in the oven. Having ground it with the addition of a little
copperas, mix with the juice, boil, and make the purple dye.
101. A Substitute for Greenish-Blue Color
In place of greenish-blue color, take scoria of iron, crush it with
care until reduced to the appearance of smegma, and boil it with
some vinegar until it becomes stiff. Immerse the wool previously
cleaned with heavy fullers herb, and you will find it dyed in purple.
Dye in this way with the colors that you have.
Iron oxide or scales from the forging of iron was called “scoria of
iron,” while the term “smegma” was applied to copper oxide made
by blowing across the surface of molten copper with bellows.
102. Arsenic
103. Sandarach
104. Misy
THE LEYDEN & STOCKHOLM PAPYRI
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