Researchers discover pigments of lapis lazuli in medieval woman’s jaw

In medieval Europe, lapis lazuli was as rare and expensive as gold. The discovery of traces of the blue pigment preserved in the dental plaque was made by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena and the University of York in the UK and adds to a growing body of evidence that nuns in medieval Europe were not only literate, but also involved in the production of books.

To identify the blue colouring trapped in the woman’s plaque, scientists used a range of light and electron microscopy techniques, as well as spectroscopy, including a technique called Raman spectroscopy, which offers a non-destructive means of characterising mineral pigments and other materials with high precision using the scattering of laser light. “It came as a complete surprise—as the calculus dissolved, it released hundreds of tiny blue particles,” said co-first author Dr Anita Radini, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Medical Humanities at the University of York.

“Here we have direct evidence of a woman, not just painting, but painting with a very rare and expensive pigment, and at a very out-of-the-way place,” explained senior author on the paper Prof. Christina Warinner from the Max Planck Institute. “This woman’s story could have remained hidden forever without the use of these techniques. It makes me wonder how many other artists we might find in medieval cemeteries—if we only look.”

The study, titled “Medieval women’s early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculus”, was published on 9 January 2019 in Science Advances.

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