Alchemy in the Making: From ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE - 1000 AD)

Project Information

AlchemEast

Grant agreement ID: 724914

DOI

10.3030/724914

Project closed

EC signature date 13 July 2017

Start date 1 December 2017

End date 30 April 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 997 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 997 000,00

Coordinated by

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - AlchemEast (Alchemy in the Making: From ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE - 1000 AD))

Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The AlchemEast project integrates different perspectives and novel methodologies to offer a new paradigm for the history of ancient alchemy. The AlchemEast team conducts his research along three main lines of investigation:

(1) In a long-term perspective, we aim to reconstruct the origins and early development of alchemy. Medieval scholars of Western Europe did not invent alchemy from scratch; instead, they reshaped an existing millennium-old tradition. The project explores: (a) the Babylonian proto-chemical arts, (b) the origins of alchemy in the Graeco-Roman Egypt, (c) its reception in Byzantine alchemical compendia, and (d) the different forms in which Syriac and Arabic scholars repackaged the earlier alchemical tradition. In doing so, the project also investigates how alchemical theory and practice were influenced by contiguous sciences, arts, and natural philosophy.

(2) Our research is deeply rooted in careful textual and philological work, which focuses on a multilingual corpus of alchemical texts that are often unedited or difficult to access, as they are only available in outdated and uncritical editions. Akkadian, Greek, Syriac and Arabic primary sources constitute the textual basis of the project, as they reflect the different cultural contexts in which ancient (al)chemical arts developed in antiquity. The project conducts a comparative investigation of this extensive textual corpus to reconstruct the transmission and transformation of alchemical writings in their changing cultural contexts.

(3) Most ancient alchemical sources are recipe books describing a variety of procedures that go far beyond the making of gold. To fully comprehend the ‘chemical’ realty encapsulated in this rich textual tradition, the AlchemEast project, in close collaboration with modern chemists, works to develop a new methodology to test and replicate ancient alchemical procedures in modern laboratories.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To fully integrate the three main research lines of the project, we have assembled a highly interdisciplinary research group comprising scholars with diverse yet complementary skills. Assyriologists, experts in Greek, Syriac or Arabic texts, historians of science, and chemists have been working side by side. This cross-disciplinary work has been discussed in international meetings (conferences, workshops, panels) organized throughout the project's duration. Some of these meetings focused on primary sources and their cultural contexts. They explored topics such as the dissemination of technical papyri in Graeco-Roman Egypt, the distinctive features of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic alchemical manuscripts as well as Babylonian procedural texts. Other workshops examined specific areas of expertise related to ancient alchemical knowledge, including ink making, perfume making, music, botany, and ancient painting. A series of lectures was devoted to the epistemologies of ancient recipes. The main results of these activities have been published in monographic studies on the history of ancient chemical arts as well as in edited volumes.

A wide and multilingual corpus of textual sources has been investigated. This extensive corpus of primary sources includes:
(1) Babylonian proto-chemical recipes. This investigation mainly focused on Akkadian tablets on glass making, perfume making, metalworking, and textile dyeing. For a general introduction to the Babylonian 'chemical' corpus, with a link to the digital editions and translations of key sources, please refer to: https://alchemeast.eu/cuneiform-texts/
(2) Graeco-Egyptian alchemical writings. The research mainly focused on the earliest alchemical books that came to us, namely the Leiden and Stockholm papyri, whose structure and sources have been freshly examined, and the writings by Zosimus of Panopolis. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of (al)chemical techniques in Middle Platonic philosophical discourse.
(3) Byzantine alchemical writings. Along with a new catalogue of the Byzantine alchemical manuscripts kept in Italian libraries, the project has produced a new edition and translation of the alchemical writings attributed to Christianos as well as of the late alchemical dialogues attributed to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra.
(4) Syriac and Arabic alchemical texts. A throughout study of the Syriac translation of Zosimus’ alchemical writings has been combined with the study of : (a) Arabic alchemical works attributed to Maria the Jewess, Democritus and Ostanes (edition and translation); (b) Pseudo al-Rāzī’s ‘Book on alums and salts’ in its Arabic and Hebrew versions (edition and translation); (c) Jābir ibn Ḥayyān’s books on the seven metals and the fifth nature (monographic study) and Jābir’s ‘Rectifications to Plato’ (study of the manuscript tradition).

A continuous experimental work in modern laboratories has integrated and complemented the textual work, which has allowed us to trace and map the transmission and transformation of alchemical procedures over centuries. The replications of alchemical recipes have been based on this diachronic reconstruction of the selected procedures. The laboratory work has mainly focused on the ancient chemistry of mercury (cold and hot extraction from cinnabar; making of artificial cinnabar), the ink production (the making of golden inks and inviable inks), and the technology of ‘divine waters’.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By focusing on the earliest developments of alchemy, the AlchemEast project has uncovered a wealth of alchemical knowledge that predates the commonly recognized medieval origins of the discipline. The project has thus contributed to creating a new history of alchemical practices and theories. We made previously inaccessible primary sources available and explored the relationships between alchemy and other contemporary disciplines. No longer studied in isolation, ancient alchemical arts are reconnected to the various cultural, religious, philosophical, and technological contexts in which they were developed and conceptualized.

Through philologically informed replications of ancient alchemical processes, the project has successfully restored the practical foundations of ancient alchemy, which had often been denied by scholars in the past due to outdated historiographical paradigms that dismissed alchemy as a "pseudo-science". The AlchemEast project has dismantled this negative viewpoint.

The three lines of research described above have converged to shape a new historiography of ancient alchemy, presenting fresh and more balanced narratives. The project has introduced a radically new perspective on alchemy as a dynamic art that developed across different scholastic traditions. Within this framework, alchemists devised a wide array of experimental practices to manipulate and transform natural substances. Our research has reconstructed these workshop practices, exploring the various forms of expression (ranging from straightforward instructions to intricate allegories) used to codify, transmit, and conceptualize alchemical techniques. In this intricate realm of textual alchemical discourse, we find procedures that are akin to what we now refer to as chemistry. Chemistry can indeed reclaim a rich, millennia-old history that has long been forgotten. Moreover, it is even conceivable to revive and test procedures that never found their way into modern laboratories. History intersects with modern chemistry, paving the way for new avenues to integrate the humanities and sciences.

AlchemEast_Chronological framework

Experiments in modern laboratories