Adhesives
This page is just a placeholder. Classicists, Egyptologists, and Assyriologists tend to see hide glue and plant gums as the old kind (eg. RlA band 6 from 1980-1983 has Leim (Glue): sieh Lederindustrie §5 http://publikationen.badw.de/de/rla/index#6954; Roger B. Ulrich, “17 Woodworking,” in John Peter Oleson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World (2009) also equates glue with animal glue). Much research focuses on glues used as binders in paint eg.
Richard Newman and Susana M. Halpine, “The binding media of ancient Egyptian painting,” in W.V. Davies (ed.), Colour and Painting in Ancient Egypt (British Museum Press: London, 2001) pp. 22-32
- Herodotus 2.86.6 kommi “gum”
- IG II² 1672 (Eleusis) κόλλα παρ Ἀγάθωνος ταῖς θύραις “glue from Agathon for the gates” … κόλλαν ταυρέαν παρ Ἀγάθωνος εἰς τὸν θησαυρόν, στατῆρες ∶ΔΔΣΣ see in general https://epigraphy.packhum.org/search?patt=%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B1
- Polybius 6.23.1-5 taurokolla
- Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 1.81 frankincense as gum (rough and ready translation https://archive.org/details/Dioscorides_Materia_Medica/ but Mark Clarke recommends Beck, L.Y. (2011) Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus: De materia medica. [Altertums wissenschaftliche Texte und Studien, vol 38.] Second, revised and enlarged edition. Hildesheim/ Zürich/ New York: Olms–Weidmann.)
- Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 2.107 wheat paste (in an entry on something else)
- Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 3.101 hide glue
- Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 3.102 fish glue
- Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 5.183 black ink recipe
- Mappae Clavicula 122-C, 123
Is there any evidence for cheese glue before the shields from Dura Europos? Maya Heath refers us to:
Baker, Tim, “Glue”, The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible, Volume 1, Bois d’Arc Press, Lyons & Burford, Publishers, New York, 1992, p. 203
Research has less to say about pitch and wheat paste but pitch is Paleolithic https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/06/neanderthals-seem-to-be-the-first-humans-to-make-synthetic-materials/
