May 2018
Vol. VI, No. 5
Alchemy Between the Two Rivers?
By Maddalena Rumor
Was there “alchemy” in ancient Mesopotamia, and if so, with what was this “art” concerned? Should we even take the trouble of investigating these questions?
Interior of a laboratory with an Alchemist. David Teniers the Younger, 1610-1690.
Recent scholarship has identified elements that point us in the direction of Mesopotamia, and that help us reconstruct the first stages from which alchemy, with its discovery of substances, development of processes and invention of instruments, grew. In order to do this, however, it is essential to understand what alchemy was in antiquity.
When we mention “alchemy” today, we invariably think of secret experiments with metals and stones heated in ovens, cauldrons and glimmering flasks, perhaps even surrounded by smelling clouds of sulphur spiced up by a pinch of magic formulae (the older the better). This charming image is undoubtedly indebted to past practitioners, but the reality was more mundane. In general terms the goal has always been the same through the centuries: to transform matter in order to improve, or to unravel, its nature, with motives ranging from the philosophical to the purely materialistic.
Alchemical instruments.
While the classical etymology of the name of most scientific disciplines, such as “biology,” “astronomy” and “physics” is usually well understood, that of “chemistry” is still shrouded in mystery. All we know is that the word “chemistry” developed from medieval “alchemy” (alchemia), a term that derives from Arabic al-kīmiyā and ultimately from Greek chēmeia, but even the origins of the Greek term are not known. It thus appears that this very old art of tinkering with nature, together with its name – be it “chemistry,” “alchemy”, or the “holy and divine art” (hē hiera kai theia technē as it was called by the ancient Greeks) – may be even older than Greek civilization.
The long medieval tradition of Latin alchemical treatises and recipe-books derives from early Greek texts. For the 1st century CE scholar Pseudo-Democritus, the art consisted of investigating the affinities between different substances, and the dyeing of raw matter through liquid tinctures to forge products that resembled gold, silver, precious stones and purple wool. The earliest examples of alchemical texts, two Greek papyri written in the late 3rd century BCE, contain recipes for dyeing of precious metals, stones and purple. The incentive was clearly to obtain something of seemingly greater value out of cheaper materials.
Early accounts narrate how the predecessors of these Greek alchemists had learned their skills in Egypt, probably in Alexandria (the main intellectual center of the Hellenistic period, at the crossroad between ancient eastern and western civilizations). They also claimed that this knowledge ultimately derived from the Near East, whence Persian magi (learned priests) would have brought it to Egypt. Some of the alchemical procedures were indeed described as “Persian” by Hellenistic authors, a designation that pointed to the land of the Persians/Chaldeans, thus to Mesopotamia.
Can these stories be confirmed in any way? And do Near Eastern sources include any practices that could be labeled as “alchemical”? The archaeological record shows that the chemical apparatus, derived from the kitchen and elaborated to suit different needs, remained mostly the same from the time of the Babylonians on to the Arab periods.
Perfume burner from Assyrian civilization, 13th c. BCE. DEA / A. Dagli Orti, Getty Images.
Double-rimmed pot for distillation, Tepe Gawra, Iraq, Uruk Period (ca. 3500 BCE).
Tepe Gawra pot for distillation – Reconstruction
But the cuneiform corpus of al/chemical texts is rather fragmentary. It consists mainly in a series of instructions on the manufacture of colored glass (presumably to counterfeit precious stones), and a handful of other tablets, all dated between the 12th and the 7th centuries BCE. These focus on various sorts of dyeing procedures, often involving the dipping of pebbles, base glass or a mix of minerals into a dying liquid, to make them resemble precious stones or metals.
Blue glass ingot from LBA Palace at Tell Brak, northern Syria.
An excerpt from one of these tablets, for instance, describes how to obtain an imitation dušû-stone (a precious or semi-precious stone that was normally mentioned together with lapis lazuli and gold):
“(…) You boil alum and … in vinegar. You steep (the stone) in lapis lazuli-colored liquid and place it in the fire and (then you have) a dušû-colored stone. (Colophon:) An original from Babylon. Property of Nebuchadnezzar (I), king of Babylon.”
Another text presents instructions for forging silver:
“Into two minas of refined (washed) copper [one-half mina of…] 10 shekels of tin, 2 shekels of [xxx]. It melts; it will be cast [and made it “run”] in oil and the “flour” will be fired; it will be wiped off, cleaned up (lit. purified). (These objects are) silver zībtu; this (kind of) silver [cannot be detected].”
“Alchemical” tablet K 7942+. ©Trustees of the British Museum.
Recently, one more tablet has been recognized as “alchemical”. It contains instructions for dyeing white wool to a hue similar to the precious purple of antiquity, but using much cheaper colorants:
“You take white wool and alum, spread (them) out evenly in water, (and) simmer over coals. Pound ḫatḫurētu (insects similar to the red Kermes worms) together with spring water and take up the white wool, spread them out evenly. Simmer in (plain) water and water from (potter’s) clay over coals. (You will obtain) argamannu-purple-colored wool (normally obtained from the secretions of the much more expensive Murex sea snails).”
Shell of Murex sea snails.
Purple wool obtained from the secretions of the Murex snail.
Alchemical knowledge was surely not available to everyone. Both the Babylonian tablets and the Greek papyri are clearly concerned with secrecy and with the quality of the resulting counterfeits that, in their words, will “deceive even the artisans” or that “cannot be detected.”
In some ways, however, such knowledge seems to have travelled farther than was initially intended. The chemical instructions and writing style in the cuneiform tablets are very similar to those in the later Greek alchemical papyri. Both tablets and papyri deal with the dyeing of metals, stones and purple wool, a core division that matches the one later established by Pseudo-Democritus and other Greek alchemists. Finally, they both share the same worries.
Zosimos’ distillation equipment from Codex Parisinus 2327, 15th century.
Distillation process in an Arabic treatise of chemistry. © The British Library.
Mesopotamian records on alchemy do not contain philosophical discussions on the nature of matter as later alchemy did, but at the same time they had a spiritual and mystical nature: it the chemical production was often accompanied by ritual actions, and colors were associated with “magical” meanings. Additionally, the Greek use of obscure, esoteric terminology has been shown to occasionally originate from misunderstandings of Babylonian chemical ingredients. It is thus likely that a further comparative analysis of such terminology could lead to a better understanding of some cryptic Greek alchemical terms.
Finally, to go back to the name of the “art” itself, its origins might also be found in Mesopotamia. While the etymology of the Greek term chēmeia (χημεία) remains problematic, I have recently suggested that it may derive from the Akkadian term kamû/kawû, the secondary meaning of which is “to bake, to roast” (root *√kmy/kwy, surviving in Aramaic √kwy, “to burn”).
Cuneiform “alchemy” is a still underexplored, and yet potentially vital, source of information on the earliest technical procedures from which the Hellenistic alchemical tradition and eventually medieval alchemy arose. Indeed, the very name “chemistry” may show us the Mesopotamian roots of what became a true science.
Maddalena Rumor is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Case Western Reserve University.
For Further Reading
Martelli M. & M. Rumor. “Near Eastern Origins of Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy.” In Esoteric Knowledge in Ancient Sciences. K. Geus and M. J. Geller eds. (Berlin: Max Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2014): 37–62.
Oppenheim, L. “Mesopotamia in the Early History of Alchemy,” RA 60 (1966): 29–45.
