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Ancient Egyptians Used 'White-Out' to Fix Mistakes, Researchers Find
Ancient Egyptian scribes used a white correction fluid made of huntite and calcite to edit funerary papyri, a practice confirmed on manuscripts in major museums, curator said.
- During preparations for the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, researchers uncovered thick white correction fluid on the Book of the Dead of Ramose, a c. 1290–1278 BC papyrus from Sedment, Egypt.
- Because the Book of the Dead guided the deceased, ancient Egyptian scribes and senior artists or overseers applied varied corrections to ensure textual accuracy and visual perfection, Mohamed S. Hefny, Cairo University found.
- Applying infrared reflectography and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry , researchers used 3D digital microscopy to analyse the jackal vignette on the papyrus and identified a deliberate mixture of huntite, calcite, and orpiment.
- Researchers say the discovery sheds new light on ancient Egyptian craftspeople's meticulous standards and astonished curators and conservators at major collections including the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
- Visible on the jackal's body, the white correction pigment on Ramose's papyrus marks an edit to Wepwawet's image, highlighting ancient craftsmen's ingenuity in funerary book production practices.
8 Articles
8 Articles
Ancient Egyptians used 3,000-year-old 'Tipp-Ex' mix to fix mistakes on papyrus artwork
Ancient Egyptians have been found to have used a 3,000 year-old "Tipp-Ex" like correction fluid to fix artistic errors on papyrus documents and artworks, new research has suggested.Researchers at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum made the discovery as staff prepared one of the best-preserved Egyptian scrolls for public display, noticing a dense white substance applied along both sides of a jackal figure painted on the artefact.This particular scrol…
Ancient Egyptians Altered Book of the Dead with “Wite-Out,” Scholars Say
Researchers from Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum recently discovered that Ancient Egyptians used a 3,000-year-old version of Wite-Out to amend mistakes on their papyrus creations, The Art Newspaper reported Monday. Using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, scholars determined that the ancient off-white fluid was composed of calcite, huntite, and miniscule flecks of yellow orpiment, a highly toxic sulfide of arsenic that […]
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