In an Ancient Nun’s Teeth, Blue Paint — and Clues to Medieval Publishing

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Steph Yin

Blue flecks of lapis lazuli in the tartar of a 10th-century nun. She likely was an accomplished painter and manuscript illuminator, who used her (unbrushed) teeth to shape her paintbrush.CreditCreditChristina Warinner

Anita Radini, an archaeologist at the University of York, in England, spends a lot of time looking at tartar. Really old tartar. But several years ago, when studying the dental plaque of a nun from medieval Germany, Dr. Radini saw something entirely new: particles of a brilliant blue. She showed the findings to Christina Warinner, another tartar expert, who was shocked. The particles, it turned out, were of ultramarine pigment, the finest and most expensive of blue colorings, made of lapis lazuli stone from Afghanistan. The German nun with the pigment in her teeth — B78, as she is known in the archaeological literature — was likely a painter and scribe of religious texts. And she must have been highly skilled to have been entrusted with such a rare powder, the researchers said. [More]