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*Here are my translations of the "elements" from the French in the chart. Feel free to correct me:
Esprit acides : Acidic (acerbic) spirits
Acide du sel marin: Lit. acid of sea salt, HCl (which was thought to contain oxygen until Davy showed otherwise: link)
Acide nitreux: Nitric and nitrous acids, HNO3, HNO2
Acide vitriolique: Sulfuric and sulfurous acids, derived from oleum & vitriol.
Sel alcali fixe: Sodium & potassium hydroxides and carbonates.
Sel alcali volatil: Sal ammoniac, NH4Cl, which sublimes and was endlessly fascinating.
Terre absorbante: Silicates (sand) and diatomaceous earth.
Substances metalliques: Metallic substances
Mercure: Mercury was considered to be the spirit of matter.
Regule d'Antimoine: Regulus of antimony -- metallic antimony. Regulus means "little King"
Or: Gold
Argent: Silver
Cuivre: Copper
Fer: Iron
Plomb: lead
Etain: Tin
Zinc
Pierre Calaminaire: Lit. calamine stone, i.e., calamine ore. Note the French place name.
Soufre mineral: Sulfur or brimstone. This material held a special place in alchemy, along with mercury and salt.
Principe huileux ou Soufre: The oily essence of organic substances from plants, also called the "sulfur." See the interesting discussion under Spagyric.
Esprit de vinaigre: Vinegar or acetic acid
Eau: water
Sel: Salt held a special place in alchemy along with mercury and sulfur.
Esprit de vin et Esprit ardents: Any of the flammable alcohols derived from fermentation, e.g., ethanol, methanol, etc.
11 comments:
My first reaction was: "Prince's shopping list?"
Notice I used the word 'reaction' above, so I'll all chemistryish and stuff.
Question for others: With which element do you most closely identify? Note that there is even one labeled "PC".
Haz: Did Prince use symbols like that? I've been a fan of his music but not his group's iconography.
I identify with Hydrogen - light, simple, no nonsense, and useful.
Chickie,
I have a solution of 40% sulphuric acid, 40% phosphoric acid, 20% water, pH of about zero. It has many metals dissolved in it - essentially dissolved stainless steel + copper, so Fe, Cr, Ni, Cu,and traces of others.
I need to get quick, inexpensive analysis that will tell me the concentrations of the two acids, and the amount of Fe in the solution. What is the easiest way to get this? The cheapest?
@bagoh20: ICP analysis is best for quantifying amounts of elements. Find a commercial lab which does it (I don't know any). My landlord back in Cleveland did it for a living for an oil company. They needed/wanted to know what was in crude samples.
The S/P ratio will be a proxy for the relative acid amounts.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
Water, I am water. Water makes me happy: the sounds waves and brooks, the sounds of fountains, steam rooms, Jacuzzis...
I believe iron and copper are Roman in origin - male, female.
bagoh20 said...
Thanks. I'll check it out.
A quick and dirty method would be to add a salt to selectively precipitate the sulfate and the phosphate and then weigh; the pH = 0 is the ringer because that's quite acidic.
The circle with a horizontal line matches a sign that appeared in the 18th dynasty, representing "moon," It has a variation with a curved line, quarter moon. It is a a triliteral vocalized as p-s-ḏ
The d underlined is pronounced dj
The circle with a dot in middle can be "re," the sun.
None of the others match anything except the upside down ankh drawn with a circle instead of a pointed oval vaguely matches.
Egyptian signs are categorized in groups mostly having to do with human things and activities and animals.Only one group "N" for sky, earth, and water. And it is one of the smaller categories.
The word for "gold," nebu, is a picture of a necklace in category "S" crowns, dress, staves, etc.,
The word for "silver" is the word for "gold" with another sign for "mace"
Electrum is "gold" + "scepter"
The determinative for "salt" is a tiny circle with three lines under it. The word is pronounced h-mr-ah-sm
The tiny circle represents "granule" of something. It follows the word in front of it.
So the answer is no, these alchemy symbols are not based on Egyptian hieroglyphs.
I think Egyptians would be interested in chemicals such as coal, bitumen, specific gems, minerals used for paint and magic formulas.
I have seen some alchemy type symbols just recently that looked like somebody was trying to be arcane as possible that did include a few genuine hieroglyphics, like "water" but without making any sense. Just a hodgepodge of squiggly crap but it was interesting seeing what they were trying to do, mixing hieroglyphics with various motifs like buzzard with spread wings, and including hebrew, and some masonic ciphers and symbols. It was complete b.s., but a rather fun fake out. Scratched on one of those broad flat metal necklaces in the shape of a crescent moon.
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