Atramentum

Atramentum or atrament, generally means a very black, usually liquid, substance. For example, an octopus may emit a puff of atrament.

In ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, the term atramentum signified any black colouring substance used for any purpose. The Romans distinguished three principal kinds of atramentum, one called librarium (or scriptorium), another called sutorium, the third tectorium.

Atramentum or atrament, generally means a very black, usually liquid, substance. For example, an octopus may emit a puff of atrament.

In ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, the term atramentum signified any black colouring substance used for any purpose. The Romans distinguished three principal kinds of atramentum, one called librarium (or scriptorium), another called sutorium, the third tectorium. Atramentum librarium was the writing ink of Roman times, atramentum sutorium was used by shoemakers for dyeing leather, atramentum tectorium (or pidorium) was used by painters for some purposes, apparently as a sort of varnish.

Atramentous is a related adjective which means "black as ink". Historically, to atrament something would mean to write something down with ink. The word atrament is related to modern English atrocious — both originate from Latin atrare which presumably meant to make something black.

According to the pigment handbook, atramentum is a historical pigment or ink based on carbon black

Carbon black

Carbon black is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products such as FCC tar, coal tar, ethylene cracking tar, and a small amount from vegetable oil. Carbon black is a form of amorphous carbon that has a high surface area to volume ratio, although its surface area to...

. Apelles

Apelles

Apelles of Kos was a renowned painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of this artist rated him superior to preceding and subsequent artists...

 is credited of manufacturing method for atramentum elephantinum from burning ivory

Ivory

Ivory is formed from dentine and constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth and narwhal....

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In one modern commercial usage of the word, atramentum is deep black coloring substance manufactured by a reaction of an iron salt with tannic acid

Tannic acid

Tannic acid, a specific commercial form of tannin, is a polyphenol. Its weak acidity is due to the numerous phenol groups in the structure. The chemical formula for commercial tannic acid is often given as C₇₆H₅₂O₄₆, but in fact it contains a mixture of related...

 (the tannic acid for this purpose is often extracted from oak bark). It is a historically-important black dye

Dye

A dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....

 or pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

 fundamentally different from carbon black or black iron oxide

Iron oxide

Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Altogether, there are sixteen known iron oxides and oxyhydroxides.-Oxides:* FeO, iron oxide, * Fe₃O₄, iron oxide,...

 pigments. It was also sometimes called "ink stone". It appears greyish-black in water but the colour becomes very deep and lustrous in linseed oil

Linseed oil

Linseed oil, also known as "flax seed oil" is a clear to yellowish oil obtained from the dried ripe seeds of the flax plant . The oil is obtained by cold pressing, sometimes followed by solvent extraction....

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