Common Products and Their Ancient Equivalents


  • "Haimatites" - A pigment (our hematite) that was formerly called lodestone.


  • "Plaster of Paris" - It was familiar to Theophrastus. He mentions its strength as a cement for walls and as a whitewash.


  • Perfumes were not unfamiliar to the ancients. Oils were collected from many kinds of flowers and other natural ingredients.


  • Sodium carbonate - known to them as carbonate of soda - was used in glassmaking, bread making, for colic pains, and was mixed with oil for skin eruptions.


  • Vinegar, the only acid recognized by the ancients, was used in dissolving soda.


  • Starch was obtained from wheat soaked in water five times. It was then trodden out, washed, sieved, and dried (Stillman 52).


  • Glue was prepared from ox hides and from the stomach of a fish in the Black Sea.


  • Ink was made from lampblack and glue.



    • Next
    Previous