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Inkstick: Soot and Glue Pounded Thirty Thousand Times, Qimin Yaoshu
The inkstick recipe in Jia Sixie's Qimin Yaoshu (6th century): fine soot and glue, 16 to 5 by weight, the glue soaked in ash-bark water, with egg white, pounded in an iron mortar thirty thousand times and made into small sticks. Ground on an inkstone with a little water, a stick gives black ink.
The picture: an Eastern Han dynasty inkstick (photo by Gary Todd, Wikimedia Commons, CC0).
Ophakathi
Weeks
Imiyalelo
1
1
Watch: soot to inkstick
Watch: soot to inkstick
Goldthread visits an Anhui inkstick maker: soot collected, pounded with glue, shaped into sticks (no talking).
2
2
Sieve the soot
Sieve the soot
Pound good pure soot and sift it through fine silk inside a jar. It is so light that sifted in the open it flies away.
Izinto zokwakha zalesi sinyathelo:
Umsizi wentuthu1 jinAmathuluzi adingekayo:
Isigqulo Nomgqulo
Indwangu Kasilika
Isitsha Sobumba Esinesivalo3
3
Soak the glue in ash-bark water
Soak the glue in ash-bark water
For each jin of soot take 5 liang of good glue and soak it in water with ash bark. The bark turns the water green, dissolves the glue and deepens the black.
Izinto zokwakha zalesi sinyathelo:
Uglu wezilwane5 liang
Igobolondo le-Ash1 ucezu
Amanzi1 ucezuAmathuluzi adingekayo:
Isitsha Sobumba Esinesivalo
Isikali sesilinganiso4
4
Add egg white
Add egg white
Add the whites of 5 eggs, yolks removed, and mix everything together. (Jia also adds cinnabar and musk; they are left out here.)
Izinto zokwakha zalesi sinyathelo:
Iqanda5 pcsAmathuluzi adingekayo:
Isitsha Sobumba Esinesivalo5
5
Pound 30,000 times
Pound 30,000 times
Put it in an iron mortar, stiff rather than wet, and pound 30,000 strokes. The more, the better.
Amathuluzi adingekayo:
Isigqulo Nomgqulo6
6
Make small sticks
Make small sticks
Shape sticks of no more than 2 to 3 liang: better small than big. Make ink only in the 2nd or 9th month. In warm weather it spoils and stinks; in the cold it dries badly and crumbles in the wind.
Amathuluzi adingekayo:
Isikali sesilinganisoIzinto
5- 1 jinIsibambeli
- 5 liangIsibambeli
- 1 ucezuIsibambeli
- 1 ucezuIsibambeli
- 5 pcsIsibambeli
Amathuluzi Adingekayo
4- Isibambeli
- Isibambeli
- Isibambeli
- Isibambeli
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