Medieval women’s early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis 
lazuli identification in dental calculus

Radini, Anita; Tromp, Monica; Beach, Alison I.; Tong, E.; Speller, Camilla; McCormick, Michael; Dudgeon, John V.; Collins, Matthew J.; Rühli, Frank; Kröger, Roland; Warinner, Christina G.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau7126

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Medieval women’s early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculus

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons202930

Tromp, Monica
Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons221103

Warinner, Christina G.
Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

Radini_Medieval_SciAdv_2019.pdf
(Publisher version), 3MB

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Radini, A., Tromp, M., Beach, A. I., Tong, E., Speller, C., McCormick, M., et al. (2019). Medieval women’s early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculus. Science Advances, 5(1): eaau7126. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau7126.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0007-300D-5

Abstract

During the European Middle Ages, the opening of long-distance Asian trade routes introduced exotic goods, including ultramarine, a brilliant blue pigment produced from lapis lazuli stone mined only in Afghanistan. Rare and as expensive as gold, this pigment transformed the European color palette, but little is known about its early trade or use. Here, we report the discovery of lapis lazuli pigment preserved in the dental calculus of a religious woman in Germany radiocarbon-dated to the 11th or early 12th century. The early use of this pigment by a religious woman challenges widespread assumptions about its limited availability in medieval Europe and the gendered production of illuminated texts.