Pliny

The use of the various tempera and of wax has been identified on objects dating back to ancient Egypt. The Eayum mummy portraits are beautiful examples of encaustic painting, ie, using molten wax as medium. A rather special variation was the technique used by the Romans for wall paintings. In these, the medium, referred to by Pliny as Punic wax, probably consisted of partially saponified wax. In Europe, wax ceased to be used by the ninth century. 

The toxic effects of mercury and mercury compounds as well as their medicinal properties have been known for many centuries. In the first century AD, Pliny indicated the use of mercuric sulfide (cinnabar or vermilion) in medicine and in cosmetics. This compound was probably known to the Greeks in the time of Aristotle (13). 

Egyptian papyms bonded with a starchy adhesive has been dated to 3500—4000 BC. Pliny the Elder (23—74 ad) described Egyptian use of wheat starch modified by boiling in vinegar to produce a smooth surface for papyms documents. 

Tin [7440-31 -5] is one of the world s most ancient metals. When and where it was discovered is uncertain, but evidence points to tin being used in 3200—3500 BC. Ancient bron2e weapons and tools found in Ur contained 10—15 wt % tin. In 79 ad, Pliny described an alloy of tin and lead now commonly called solder (see Solders and brazing alloys). The Romans used tinned copper vessels, but tinned iron vessels did not appear until the fourteenth century in Bohemia. Tinned sheet for metal containers and tole (painted) ware made its appearance in England and Saxony about the middle of the seventeenth century. Although tinplate was not manufactured in the United States until the early nineteenth century, production increased rapidly and soon outstripped that in all other countries (1). 

In some of his work, Pliny the Elder (24—79 Ad) wrote of the heating of wine with flames. In the tenth century, the Persian philosopher Avicenna (980—1037 ad) described a distillation stUl. Magister Salemus wrote about "aqua ardens" around 1150 AD. The German alchemist and philosopher, Albertus Magnus (1200—1280 ad), studied wine distillation, made improvements, and wrote a manuscript on the production of aqua ardens. 

In Ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder (c. a.d. 23-79) dedicated 37 volumes of Natural History to the emperor Titus. In the last of these books, dealing with gems and precious stones, he describes the properties of the fossil resin, amber. The ability of amber to attract dust was recognised and in fact the word electricity is derived from elektron, the Greek for amber. 

Further east another natural resin, lac, had already been used for at least a thousand years before Pliny was bom. Lac is mentioned in early Vedic writings and also in the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayona. In 1596 John Huyglen von Linschoeten undertook a scientific mission to India at the instance of the King of Portugal. In his report he describes the process of covering objects with shellac, now known as Indian turnery and still practised ... 

Amber is of both historical and etymological interest as its property of attracting dust was known over 2000 years ago. From the Greek word for amber, elektron, has come the word electricity. Pliny in his works makes an interesting and informative dissertation on the occurrence and properties of amber. 

LEY, WILLY, Dragons in Amber, Sidgwick and Jackson, London (1951) Pliny, Book 37, Chapter 3... 

A siinilar observation had been made (with less dramatic consequences) nearly 2000 y earlier by Pliny the Elder when he wrote Beryls, it is thought, are of the same nature as the smaragdus (emerald), or at leasi closely analogous (Historia Nuturalis, Book 37). 

G. Pliny (the Elder), ad 23-79, mentions sulfur in several of the many books of his posthumously published major work, Naturalis Historia. 

Parejko K. Pliny the Elder s Silphium First Recorded Species Extinction. Conservation Biol 2003 17 925-7. 

Rackham HT. Pliny natural history. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1950. 

Hippocrates mentioned elder as a purgative around 400 B.C. Pliny (circa 2379 A.D.) recorded the use of elder by the Romans. Pedanius Dioscorides, a first-century army surgeon who traveled throughout the Roman Empire, also wrote about the medical value of elder. Elder was widely used in the early Italian medical schools. 

Franklin mentioned Pliny s account of fisherman pouring oil on troubled waters in ancient times, a practice that survives to the present. (Franklin s experiment was reenacted by the author at the pond on Clapham Common with a teaspoon of olive oil. The spreading oil covered a surface not larger than that of a beach towel-it appears that technique and/or choice of oil is important. The olive oil quickly spread out in circular patterns of brilliant prismatic colors, but then dissolved from sight. Indeed, the pond itself has shrunken considerably over the intervening 230 years.)... 

Renne P, W. D. Sharp, A. L. Deino, G. Orsi, and L. Civetta (1997), Argon-40 - Argon-39 dating into the historical realm - calibration against Pliny the Younger, Science 277, 1279-1280. 

The Latin classical name of the tree was larix, but the authorities have not found any historical relationship of the French to the Latin name they classify mil eze as originating in Alpine patois. The word larix occurs many times in Pliny s Natural History. 

Radish oil is supposed to be one of the most common oil crop products in Roman Egypt [61], as mentioned also by Pliny in Naturalis Historia (XV 7 XIX 26), though the source of this oil may not only be Raphanus sativus but other Cruciferae species as well. 

It is impossible to reveal the botanical species from which the seed oil used in the examined lamps was actually produced, e.g. to say whether the oil came from radish as reported by Pliny or from another Brassicaceae plant such as rapeseed. However, the detection of the characteristic markers in lamps from Antinoe, one of the main urban centres of Roman Egypt, represents a chemical confirmation of the widespread use of cmciferous oil at that time, and is consistent with ancient documents [61,62]. This identification is... 

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