Jan Vermeer used the valuable color Pigment for his pictures, and long before that it should have already Albrecht Dürer with Gold. Until today, ultramarine Blue, extracted from the gemstone lapis lazuli, an expensive one, because a rare and expensive product to be purchased. Since the stone age lapis lazuli is produced in mines in the Western Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, and since at least a thousand years in a very complex process with many steps, to ultramarine-Blue processed. Now researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for human history in Jena, Germany this extremely valuable dye found in the Tartar of a woman, in front of around 900 years in the monastery of Dalheim in today’s North Rhine-Westphalia, was buried.
A chance discovery in dental stone
“Actually, we wanted to investigate microscopic plant remains that are embedded in the dental stone,” recalls Christina Warinner. “Tiny blue particles were then.” First, the researchers therefore developed a method by which you isolated these blue dye from the dental stone.
With methods such as x-ray spectroscopy, radiation in the scanning electron microscope in the as color pigments, however, neither copper -, cobalt-or iron evidence, the researchers report in the Online journal “Science Advances”. These three metals form the core-part of the in the middle ages typically used in the blue colors. The only exception to this ultramarine-Blue, Anita Radini from the University of York in England, and Monica Tromp, from the Max-Planck-Institute for human history in Jena, and then using the micro-Raman spectroscopy in dental stone the woman were able to demonstrate.
A Surprise. Never before ultra was Marin-Blue in the Tartar or teeth of a human being detected. How, though, should be an extremely valuable dye, of the won at the time, only in Afghanistan and very likely in the Orient was produced, in the teeth of a 45 – to 60-year-old woman, who had been buried in a monastery in the centre of Germany? The Remains of the woman were in the middle between the other skeletons in a small cemetery next to the base of the monastery Church of Dalheim walls have been unearthed and should, therefore, come very probably from a nun.
No traces of hard, physical work
the woman had Died between 997 and 1162, the researchers found. To your skeleton, the researchers found no traces of the heavy physical work that had to make very many people. The fits to the better-off circles, which at this time usually the monks and nuns of the monasteries came. The suspects, the historian, Alison Beach, the Ohio State University in the U.S. Columbus. Women from the upper classes were mostly well educated and could usually read and Write.
ultramarine Blue was used in medieval Europe for ornaments of precious, mostly religious books, in monasteries, in painstaking work were written off. However, for posterity, are not books of the monastery Dalheims or preserved according to estimates by the Westphalian Museum of archaeology in Münster, living there 14 nuns.
brush with the mouth
moistened Four possibilities for the origin of the ultramarine blue in the teeth of the convent women, the researchers discuss women kissed ritually religious paintings, and could so have the color pigments in the mouth. However, this need is demonstrated until some three centuries after the death of the wife of Dalheim.
As highly unlikely, the second possibility of a taking of lapis lazuli as a Medicament. It was in the 11. and 12. Century, while some of the examples. However, these originate from the Islamic regions of the world. Alternatively, the woman, the ultramarine could have made Blue and the pigments added. However, there is only for the 15. Century notes on a production of the color in the middle of Europe. Therefore, the assumption is that Italian traders were the finished color of about Alexandria and East of the core.
Only very experienced and skilled scribe would have used this a luxury product for Decorating books. “If you’ve moistened the brush in the mouth, may have been deposited the picked up ultramarine Blue light in dental stone,” says Warinner.
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also, women Seem to have so – at least from the 11. Of – the-century books written off. “I’m curious, how many other medieval artists, we will find, when you Examine other teeth in the tombs of this time,” says Warinner.
