People have myriad ways of making a living, from the common
to the trivial to the obscure, and my “career” as a business broker has furthered
my amazement at that. But here is one that is pretty amazing, even for me:
People make a living conducting studies and investigations
into the making of blue ink in the Middle Ages. Seems that the formula, the
process, and the ingredients had been lost for over a century with the advent
of chemical dyes. But somebody noticed that the “illuminations” (fancy stuff in
old manuscripts) had endured for ages while the chemical stuff faded. Those
somebodies then went on a quest and discovered recipes in old Jewish Portuguese
manuscripts written in an extinct language.
As “Indiana Jones” as that all sounds, this is a scholarly
endeavor and resulted in the discovery of folium, a blue coloring made from the
berries of a plant that lives in the dry, southern part of Portugal, the Chrozophora
tinctorial and harvested at a particular time.
Wow. Can you make this stuff up?
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