[Bonetools] Colouring bone
François Poplin
poplin at mnhn.fr
Tue Apr 22 10:24:23 CEST 2014
We have had allready such a "conference" a coupkle of years go. I
recall you :
*cuivre (conservation au) *: 167 (cuirs), 179 (épingles corne), 228, 246
167 POPLIN, F., 1992 - Des cuirs de l'Age du Bronze conservés par le
cuivre. /Autour du cuir, Rencontres archéologiques de Guiry 1991/
(1992), Musée archéol. dép. du Val d'Oise, 97-102,2 figs.
179 POPLIN F., 1993 - La corne des épingles,/in/ : /Le trésor d'Eauze/,
sous la dir. de D. Schaad, Toulouse, A.P.A.M.P., 359-361, 3 figs.
228 POPLIN F., 1999 - La main verte, /Trésors méconnus du Musée de
l'Homme/, Paris, Cherche-Midi, 141.
246 POPLIN F., 2001 - De Lebeuf à Buffon : la main verte de
Merry-sur-Yonne, /Bull. Soc. nat. des Antiquaires de France/, 1997
(2001), 282-288, 1 fig.
You can see "verdigrised" ivory knife handles in the Eauze treasury
typing "trésor eauze" on Google. The best in that case is*2 preserved
horn pins (I mean : made of horn of cattle, keratin).*
*ostrich eggs : *202, 239 *(with "batik" technic, using etching)*
202 POPLIN F., 1995 - Sur le polissage des oeufs d'autruche en
archéologie, /Archaeozoology of the Near East, II, /126-139, 5 fig.
239 POPLIN F., 2000 - OEufs d'autruche décorés grecs et étrusques :
technique et diffusion, /in /: /L'artisanat en Grèce ancienne. Les
productions, les diffusions, Coll. EFA-MOM, Lyon, 10-11 déc. 1998/,
Lille, Univ. Lille 3, 127-143, 14 fig.**
No pdf, soory ; but I can send papers...
Le 17/04/2014 20:10, Kordula Gostencnik a écrit :
> ... and the easiest way to dye textiles green is to put sour milk into
> a copper vessel along with the textile - I think the effect is also
> due to the chemical reaction which produces verdigris, but I am
> completely unfamiliar with this science. This is one of the rare
> methods of direct dyeing where no mordant is necessary for the
> textiles. We tried it out with cloth and it is astonishing how it
> works. John Peter Wild refers to it in his book "Textile produciton in
> the north-western Roman provinces" - sorry I can't give the full
> reference. Might this also work with bones?
> Sincerly
> Kordula
>
>
> 2014-04-17 17:07 GMT+02:00 SA O'Connor <S.Oconnor at bradford.ac.uk
> <mailto:S.Oconnor at bradford.ac.uk>>:
>
> Dear All,
>
> I agree this is a fascinating topic and we aught to also consider
> traces of gilding and adhesives, and dressings such as waxes and oils.
>
> I am familiar with copper acetate discolouration in paintings and
> works of art on paper and this goes very brown with time. I don't
> think this is the case on this bone buckle. If the colour were
> due to the deterioration over time of copper acetate then I would
> have expected the changes to be seen generally over the surface of
> the object and not restricted to specific features. The brown
> appears to be due to the underlying colour variation in the bone
> - the stripe on the back, for instance, is an area of unworked
> endosteal surface of the longbone from which the buckle is cut.
> Perhaps the colour differences are due to the staining reacting
> with variable amounts of fatty material in the surface of the
> worked and unworked bone? I would be interested to hear anyone's
> thoughts on this.
>
> On the bone and ivory objects I have examined in detail the green
> colouration is definitely a staining and not the application of a
> particulate pigment in a medium. Perhaps copper acetate is
> involved at some stage in the process of corroding the copper but
> once the copper is in solution it has to combines with the mineral
> component of the bone to produce a permanent staining. The result
> is a stain that seems to have more the colour and stability of
> malacite (or at least something chemically similar to this) than
> copper acetate.
>
> I do not know what luck I will have in chasing the thesis I
> mentioned but I will try to do this after Easter. I do also have
> some copies of recent historic publications that detail bone
> staining processes that I have always meant to read and I will try
> to find time to look at these too, but probably not until mid May.
>
> Are you aware of the work that has been going on at the British
> Museum to look for traces of colour on the Lewis Chessmen? I am
> not sure how far they have got with this but I do know some of the
> people involved.
>
> All the best,
>
> Sonia
>
> Quoting Vincent Cattersel <vincent.cattersel at gmail.com
> <mailto:vincent.cattersel at gmail.com>>:
>
> Dear David and Sonia,
>
> the rivets were bronze so the green colouration could well be
> coming from
> the rivets' oxidation. However this staining was limited to
> the surface
> (surface of the cortical bone) and not in sub-surface layers.
> Therefore we
> assume that the colouration was done deliberately.
> Based on our data, a relationship with a certain recipe wasn't
> possible but
> we think it was a copper based product (so called *verdigris*,
> basic copper
>
> acetate, Cu(OH)2 · (CH3COO)2 · 5 H2O).
>
> You also mention the use of urine, which was frequently used
> for producing
> metal salt based pigments. The urine itself induces the
> corrosion on the
> copper sample. After it is corroded, one can scratch of the
> crystals, grind
> them to the desired particle size, add a medium (e.g. oil,
> wax) et voilà, a
> green pigment. See these two pictures from an experiment I
> have done in
> 2003.
> [image: Inline images 2] [image: Inline images 1]
> On the first picture you can see small slabs of copper hanging
> above
> vinegar (I could have well replaced the vinegar with urine).
> There should
> be no contact between the copper slabs and the fluid. The
> vapours of the
> fluid induces the corrosion process. On the second picture you
> can see the
> actual scrapings of the copper acetate crystals, which are
> ready to use.
> One often read in historical recipes that the jar should be
> buried in horse
> dong. The bacterial activity in the latter produces heat
> (sometimes +70°
> Celcius) and therefore it significantly increases the
> corrosion process and
> reduces the production time.
>
>
> Sonia:
> the object you have mailed also has the same green colouration
> as I would
> expect from an object coloured with a basic copper acetate
> based pigment.
> What draws my attention is the brownish decolouration on both
> sides of that
> object. Copper acetate is quite unstable and when exposed to
> light and a
> 'high degree of humidity' it turns into the more stable
> molecule copper
> oxide, which is brown to black.
>
>
> Yours,
> Vincent Cattersel
>
>
>
> On 17 April 2014 13:36, SA O'Connor <S.Oconnor at bradford.ac.uk
> <mailto:S.Oconnor at bradford.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> Dear David,
>
> Back in the 1980s, when I was at the York Archaeological
> Trust we were
> involved in providing green stained objects for an
> undergraduate
> dissertation by a University of Bradford, Archaeological
> Sciences, student
> (surname of Edwards, I think) to look at exactly this
> question. Some
> objects seemed to be accidentally stained (often very
> patchy) whilst others
> were intensely and evenly stained and were considered to
> be deliberately
> coloured. All were analysed by XRF and copper/bronze
> proved to be the basis
> of all the staining solutions used.
>
> In my more recent work I have documented historical
> pieces, such selected
> elements of bone and antler in box and gun inlays and bone
> and ivory
> cutlery handles(and working waste from cutlers) that are
> undeniably
> deliberately stained.
>
> I attach a low resolution image an archaeological example,
> a buckle at the
> Yorkshire Museum that I am convinced is deliberately
> stained in this way.
>
> All the best,
>
> Sonia
>
> Quoting David Constantine <dkconstantine at btinternet.com
> <mailto:dkconstantine at btinternet.com>>:
>
> I am aware that copper (or alloys) is often cited as a
> green dye for
>
> (such as in MacGregor 1985), but I believe there is
> also recipes from the
> Mappae Clavicula that use weld, urine and "lulax" to
> dye bone green, so I
> was curious to see if any chemical analysis has been
> performed to determine
> how the green has been achieved.
>
> Looking at the zoomed images, I believe the rivets are
> iron.
>
> Regards,
>
> David Constantine
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Kordula Gostencnik <kgosten at gmail.com
> <mailto:kgosten at gmail.com>>
> To: "Mailing list for archaeologists of the research
> group for the study
> of object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and horn." <
> bonetools at listserv.niif.hu
> <mailto:bonetools at listserv.niif.hu>>
> Sent: Wednesday, 16 April 2014, 20:21
> Subject: Re: [Bonetools] Colouring bone
>
>
>
> Green stains are normally caused by bronze objects or
> copper alloy scrap
> associated with worked bones in the soil. Are the
> rivets all made from iron
> or also from bronze?
>
> Kordula
>
>
>
> 2014-04-16 17:15 GMT+02:00 Dave Constantine
> <dkconstantine at btinternet.com
> <mailto:dkconstantine at btinternet.com>
> >:
>
> Thank you all for your replies.
>
>
> Vincent, the green stained comb you linked is
> rather interesting. Do you
>
> know what the green pigment is? Also, looking at the
> images, it seems
> that it is
> no more than a surface colourant with little
> penetration, is this correct?
>
>
> Thank you for your suggestion of minium, I was at
> a loss about what it
>
> could be. It is not a fresh find, it was originally
> discovered in the
> 1960s (or
> possibly 1970s) and mounted on a card for display. To
> the best of my
> knowledge
> though, the colouring is original, though it is
> possible that the surface
> was
> also coloured and this has simply failed to survive.
>
>
> I have Arthur MacGregor's book, and very useful it
> is too on the matter
> of
>
> colouring.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> David Constantine
>
>
>
> From: Vincent Cattersel
> Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 2:03 PM
> To: Mailing list for archaeologists of the
>
> research group for the study of object and waste of
> bone, antler. ivory
> and
> horn.
>
> Subject: Re: [Bonetools] Colouring bone
> Dear all,
>
> this is a first where I might be able to
> contribute to this group, but
> I'm
>
> happy to do so:
>
>
> In 2008 I have conserved and restored 8
> bone/antler combs from the
>
> Merovingian period at the Royal Institute for Cultural
> Heritage (Brussels,
> Belgium). These combs are currently preserved at the
> Royal Museums of Art
> and
> History in Brussels, Belgium.
>
> Here you can find pictures of a few of them (click
> on the pictures to
> get a
>
> zoomable high resolution image):
>
> http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=X026849&objnr=20042741
>
> http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=X035781&objnr=20052916
>
> (green staining on the surface, carbon black in the
> circular
> motives)
>
>
> http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=X026845&objnr=20052917
>
> http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=X038388&objnr=20052919
>
> http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=X035783&objnr=20052922
>
>
> Some of these where coloured and stained with
> green and carbon black. We
>
> used µ-XRF, µ-RAMAN and SEM(-EDX) to analyse the
> stains and the carbon
> black
> particles.
>
>
> So staining and colouring isn't that uncommon, as
> you probably already
>
> know.
>
>
> When I look at the picture, I can see that the red
> is slightly orange,
>
> which makes me think about the pigment lead red (also
> called 'minium' or
> lead
> tetra-oxide, Pb3O4). This isn't a
> surprise since it is one of the oldest known vivid red
> pigments (except
> for some
> iron oxide pigments derived from hematite and red
> earth or cinnabar (HgS),
> however they all are true 'reddish' in colour and lack
> the hint of
> orange).
>
>
>
> Some simple identification techniques for minium are:
> * Ultraviolet fluorescence (if minium, it
> minium it should show
> a dark red colouration);
>
> * Infrared False Color which should gives
> the observed minium a
> yellow-brown colour. Analytical techniques:
>
> In case you have the oppurtunity to
>
> analyse it with RAMAN, you can find a reference
> spectrum here.
>
> For
>
> a reference spectrum of minium using XRF: here.
>
>
>
>
> Another thing is the question whether this die was
> excavated and brought
>
> directly to your collection or was it once part of a
> (private)collection
> and
> excavated a long time ago.
>
> This is an important question since it could
> provide an answer to whether
>
> or not this colouration is original.
>
> I know from my experiences with the conservation
> of precious ivory
> objects
>
> that they are often repainted (repolychromed)
> throughout time, even
> though their
> iconography or typology gives us reasons to believe
> that they originally
> weren't
> polychromed or not polychromed in such manner as they
> are today.
>
>
> To get back on the minium pigment, more
> information can be found in:
> * Eastaugh, N., Walsh, V., Chaplin, T., &
> Siddall, R. (2008).
> Pigment Compendium - A Dictionary and Optical
> Microscopy of Historical
> Pigments. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
>
> * Feller, R. L., Gettens, R. J., & Chase,
> W. T. (1993).
> Vermilion and Cinnabar. In R. Ashok, Artists'
> Pigments - A Handbook of
> Their History and Characteristics. (Vol. II, pp.
> 159-182).
> Washington-London: National Gallery of Art.
>
>
> Another book I can recommend on staining and
> colouring bone materials is:
>
> McGregor. A. (1985) Bone, Antler, Ivory & Horn: The
> Technology of Skeletal
> Materials Since the Roman Period.
>
> I don't have it here with me for the moment, but
> as you wish, I can
> always
>
> go through it to find more information on red staining
> or colouring.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Vincent Cattersel
>
> Drs.
>
> VINCENT CATTERSEL
>
> Doctoral researcher
> Universiteit
>
> Antwerpen / University of Antwerp
>
> Faculteit
>
> Ontwerpwetenschappen / Faculty of Design Sciences
>
> Opleiding
>
> conservatie-restauratie / Conservation Studies
>
> Blindestraat
>
> 9
>
> B-2000
>
> Antwerpen
>
> T +32 3 213 71
>
> 34 | F +32 3 213 71 35 <tel:%2B32%203%20213%2071%2035>
>
> vincent.cattersel at uantwerpen.be
> <mailto:vincent.cattersel at uantwerpen.be>
> www.uantwerpen.be <http://www.uantwerpen.be>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 15 April 2014 09:06, David Constantine
> <dkconstantine at btinternet.com
> <mailto:dkconstantine at btinternet.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hello All,
>
>
> Attached is an image of a (probably) Saxon
> bone/antler die. As can be
> seen, there is reddish pigmentation in the
> decoration. I have looked
> around for similar colouring and with the
> exception of a "lucet" from
> London I cannot seem to find anything
> similar, just totally stained
> objects e.g. the belt buckle from York. Does
> anyone here know of any Early
> Medieval dated bone artefacts that are either
> entirely stained/dyed or
> have coloured decoration such as this?
>
> Regards,
>
> David
>
> Constantine
>
>
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--
François POPLIN
Directeur honoraire de l'UMR 7209 Archéozoologie, Archébotanique : sociétés, pratiques et environnements
Responsable du Séminaire d'Anthropozoologie
Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
CP 56
Ancien Laboratoire d'Anatomie comparée
55, rue de Buffon
75005 Paris
01 40 79 33 11
fax ------ 33 14
francoispoplin.blogspot.com
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