(27-04-2026, 02:21 AM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sure, the text would have become practically if it had been covered by anything with 95% opacity...
But that is not paint, it is a sauce! Tomato, red peppers, whatever -- not lead red or whatever. It would not have 95% opacity even if it was as thick as the vellum. I am sure that the guy who was enjoying it still could clearly see his teeth after the meal...
It seems that the clod who spilled it closed the book without cleaning the mess. Then later he or someone else mopped up the sauce. No chance that what remained had 95% opacity.
And then that person retraced what he could still see of the text. If the text was illegible because it was covered by the sauce, why didn't he just clean it harder? Like with a wet napkin? If the ink was IGI, there would be no risk of damaging it...
I feel that this is getting unsubstantiated.
We don't know what substance this is exactly. It looks like some foodstuff, but could be some wax, sealant, lamp oil, glue, pigment. You said in your previous comment that you can crudely estimate the composition as watery+oily stuff by the way the substance seeped through the vellum (or parchment, if vellum has its Pluto moment now), but I'm not sure I can see any difference other than the amount in the stains from f103r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f104r.
What we do know is that this substance could penetrate the vellum in significant volume to leave stains on the next folio (not only the verso of this folio) and it wouldn't easily dry up and come off even after a few centuries. So: 1) it forms highly resistant and durable film when dry; 2) it can enter the pores of the vellum, so it is physically attached to the body of the vellum.
It's likely that it spent quite some time on the vellum before its removal was attempted, otherwise I'm not sure it would have seeped through so well. It's quite possible there was no way to clean it at all without destroying the vellum itself.
Looking at the stain I actually remember red candles we used to have when I was a kid, we would occasionally use them when there was no electricity. No idea what they were made of, but if you dripped the melted candle on your clothes, it would leave a nontransparent red stain that was impossible to remove without damaging the clothes.
As a sidenote, I'm not sure why you invoke teeth, which have been optimized by the evolution specifically to stay clean of foodstuff, when a lot of food stains are extremely hard to clean from clothes, sometimes impossible without strong chemicals, and would easily mask prints on clothes.
(27-04-2026, 02:21 AM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:I think I will happily agree once I see some good evidence.Well, let me turn that around: I will happily agree once I see some good evidence that the ink is IGI.
As a wise man said a few posts back,
Quote:AFAIK there is no non-destructive test that would positively identify iron-gall ink on a manuscript.
I can ask Yale if they have any spare pages they won't need anymore, but I expect to run into problems.