Ink from ancient Egyptian papyri contains copper

(University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Humanities) Until recently, it was assumed that the ink used for writing was primarily carbon-based at least until the fourth and fifth centuries AD. But in a new University of Copenhagen study, analyses of 2,000-year-old papyri fragments with X-ray microscopy show that black ink used by Egyptian scribes also contained copper -- an element previously not identified in ancient ink.