to
the Victoria Museum at Upsala, Sweden, in the year 1906. It was there
brought to the attention of the above-named scholar, who first
published its contents in the year 1913 giving it the title Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis or
in other words the Stockholm Papyrus. This philologist made a very
thorough study of the contents, language, and symbols of the papyrus
and carefully compared it with the one at Leyden. His philological
studies made it evident that the two papyri were both written at the
same period and indeed in part at least by the same unknown writer. The
Leyden Papyrus, however, deals chiefly with metals and alloys and makes
little or no mention of some of the other phases of technical
chemistry. This singular fact was remarked by Berthelot in his studies
of the document.3 The Stockholm Papyrus, on the other hand,
deals only slightly with metals and alloys and emphasizes the arts of
dyeing, imitating precious stones, and other operations. Taken together
they form a technical recipe book of the chemical arts as they were
known and practiced about the third or fourth centuries A.D.
The
Stockholm Papyrus is formed of-fifteen loose papyrus leaves measuring
about thirty centimeters in length and about sixteen centimeters in
width. These correspond very nearly in size with the double sheets of
the Leyden Papyrus X. Like the Leyden Papyrus it is in an excellent
state of preservation. There are from forty-one to forty-seven closely
written lines of Greek capital letters on each page. The pages are
numbered consecutively although the separate recipes are not. It is
purely and simply a collection of recipes like the Leyden Papyrus with
but few traces of any theoretical considerations. There are numerous
duplications, abbreviations, and omissions in these recipes as though,
as was probably the case, they were simply intended as reminders to
those already skilled in the practice of the arts they deal with. A
total of one hundred fifty-four recipes is contained in the papyrus.
Only nine of these deal with metals. There are some seventy recipes
treating of the art of imitating precious stones and of improving the
appearance of genuine ones. The remaining recipes deal chiefly with the
mordanting and dyeing of cloth. The last one is of quite a different
character than the remainder and its significance will be discussed in
the brief commentary following the translation.
The
translation which now follows is based upon both the Greek text and the
German translation of Lagercrantz. An endeavor has been made to give a
faithful English version as far as possible although the exact nature
of some of the substances mentioned in the papyrus is difficult to
determine with accuracy. For these cases and for others where a little
explanation is deemed necessary brief notes follow the recipe
containing
3 Berthelot, "Introduction a l'Etude de la Chimie Des Anciens et du Moyen Age," Paris, 1889.
