Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

Author(s): Edward H. Schafer

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society , Apr. - Jun., 1955, Vol. 75, No. 2
(Apr. - Jun., 1955), pp. 73-89
Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/595009

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 ORPIMENT AND REALGAR IN CHINESE TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITION

EDWARD H. SCHAFER
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

AMONG THE MINERAL PIGMENTS known to the The ancient Indians had as many as seventeen
Chinese since classical times the most important names for orpiment, most of them containing roots
are the yellows,a the verditers,b ochreC and ver- for " yellow " and " gold." 8 The most prominent
milion.d The present paper is devoted to the of these was haritala, whence the familiar name for
members of the class of mineral yellows in their commercial orpiment in Oriental trade jargon,
material and spiritual relations throughout Chi- "hartall." 9
nese history. More particularly, it is concerned Orpiment was probably not mined in ancient
with the "stony yellows,"e that is, the naturalEgypt, though it was used there. Possibly it was
sulphides of arsenic.1 imported from Persia.10 It was brought into the
classical Mediterranean world from Syria," Cap-
ORPIMENT - INTRODUCTORY padocia,12 Mysia (Hellespont),13 Pontus,14 and
Orpiment (As,2S) is a beautiful yellow mineral,Carmania (Kirman).5 Other sources available to
frequently with a lustrous golden color. Some- the ancients were in Hungary, Macedonia, Western
times it is found in association with other ores of Georgia, Julamerk (Kurdistan), Shiraz, Takht-i-
arsenic and antimony. It is soft, sectile, and Sulaiman, and Mt. Demawand in Persia.16
markedly cleavable.2 Medieval European painters obtained their orpi-
The English name is of Latin origin, and means ment chiefly from Asia Minor.17 As for the Far
"gold paint." So Celsus says, . . . auripigmen- East outside of China, the presence of the mineral
tum, quod arsenicon a Graecis nominatur." 3 The
Chemistry and Geology (Oxford, 1936), 46, 47, 48, 51,
Greek is appEVL KV4 or &aprcvtov,5 for which ety-
57.
mologies related to Old Persian zaranya and Syriac"Richard Garbe, Die Indischen Mineralien, Ihre
zarnUzk "golden " have been suggested.6 This is,Namen und die ihnen zugeschriebenen Krdfte; Nara-
of course, the original of our word " arsenic," hari's Rdgarighantu varga xiii mit kritischen und er-
lauternden Anmerkungen (Leipzig, 1882), 48.
naming the metallic derivative for the sulphuretted *Ernest Watson, The Principal Articles of Chinese
source. In ancient Mesopotamia, orpiment seemsCommerce (China, The Maritime Customs, Shanghai,
to be the substance lying behind the Sumerian 1923), 207.
graphs SIG, and SIG,. SIG,, possibly "yellow," 10 A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Indus-
with Semitic readings such as sipu, damatu, andtries (3rd ed., London, 1948), 400.
" Pliny, Nat. Hist. 32. 22.
sindu hurasu "gold paint." These expressions, " The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides, Illustrated by a
however, may have also been used for realgar.7 Byzantine A.D. 512, Englished by John Goodyer, A. D.
1655, Edited and first printed A.D. 1933 by Robert T.
1The stories of "fluid yellow," dp i.e. sulphur,Gunther
and (Oxford, 1934), 642.
the vegetable yellows must be told elsewhere. 1 Ibid.
2 Charles Palache, Harry Berman and Clifford Fron- " Vitruvius, De architectura 7. 7.
del, The System of Mineralogy of James Dwight Dana " Jones, Strabo loc. cit.
and Edward Salisbury Dana, Yale University 1837-1892, 16 See Thompson, op. cit. 45; Forbes, op. cit. 267-8;
Vol. I (7th ed., New York, 1946), 266-8. Palache, op. cit. 268; Rutherford J. Gettens and George
s Celsus, De Medicina 5. 5. L. Stout, Painting Materials; A Short Encyclopaedia
4 John Hill, Theophrastus's History of Stones; With (New York, 1942), 135.
an English Version, and Critical and Philosophical Notes 17 Daniel V. Thompson, The Materials of Medieval
(London, 1756), 103, lxxi. Painting (New Haven, 1936), 176-7. Compare San Kuo
6Horace Leonard Jones, The Geography of Strabo chih (Wei chih) 30.1006c, quoting Wei liieh, for orpi-
(London, 1928), Vol. V, 15.2. 14. ment in Ta-ch'in. Page references to the dynastic his-
6 R. J. Forbes, Metallurgy in Antiquity; A Notebook tories in this essay are for the K'ai-ming edition. The
for Archaeologists and Technologists (Leiden, 1950), following abbreviations will be used in Chinese biblio-
267. graphical notices: SPTK: Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an dq; TSCC:
7R. Campbell Thompson, A Dictionary of Assyrian Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng dr; PTKM: Pen-ts'ao kang-mu ds.

73

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74 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

has been registered for Burma,"8 Khotan,19 Ku- century B. c.31 On the other hand, it is said (as
cha,20 Aqsu,21 Malaya and Champa,22 and Japan.23 of 1910) that no orpiment has been detected on
Orpiment has a long and respectable history any painting of Greek or Roman times.32 Be this
as a pigment. In modern times it has been known as it may, the pigment was familiar to Roman
under the name of " King's Yellow," but this was writers on technical subjects. Virtruvius refers to
little used after the Renaissance, and had wholly it in connection with the decoration of houses,33
disappeared from the painter's palette by the end and Dioscorides has left us an excellent descrip-
of the nineteenth century.24 Philological evidence tion of the mineral, although his interest was
indicates that it was employed as a pigment by the entirely pharmaceutical:
Mesopotamians at least as early as the seventh Arsenicum grows in ye same mines that Sandaracha
century B. c., perhaps as a face paint.25 The Egyp- doth. That is reckoned ye best, which is crusty & gold-
tians used yellow ochre until the Eighteenth like in ye colour, and having fish-scale-like crusts, as it
were, always lying one upon another & it is not mixed
Dynasty: then orpiment enjoyed a brief popu-with any other matter.84
larity, especially for the representation of royal
flesh. The skin of Akhnaton and the members of Pliny observes that painters of his time employed
his family shown in paintings at Tell al-Amarnaorpiment,35 and remarks that it could not well be
are done in orpiment.26 Sometimes the pigment used on wet plaster, though suitable for depictions
was applied to stone and to ceramics.27 A bag of on dry chalk walls.36
the raw mineral was found in the tomb of Tutan- The manuscript illuminators of the Middle
khamen,28 but after this era it was little used.29 Ages, however, made abundant use of orpiment,
There is little direct evidence of the use of orpi- especially in imitation of gold.37 A striking in-
stance is The Book of Kells (probably ninth cen-
ment by Hellenic artists, though Theophrastus
tury), one of the most beautiful books of all time,
tells of it as a paint,30 and pieces of the mineral
have been found in a grave of the fifth or fourth
in which both orpiment and realgar appear, al-
though these minerals are not native to Ireland.3
King's Yellow was the yellow of Byzantine MSS.
18 B. E. Read and C. Pak, " A Compendium of Minerals
and Stones used in Chinese Medicine from the Pen
from the seventh century,39 but late in medieval
Ts'ao Kang Mu, Li Shih Chen 1597 A. D.," Peking times substitutes were being found for this lovely
Society of Natural History Bulletin, 3.2 (December, color, because of its deleterious effect on binding
1938), 38.
'1 Li Tao-yiian dt (?-527), Shui-ching chu du (SPTK) 81 Earle R. Caley, " Ancient Greek Pigments," Journal
2.9b. of Chemical Education, 23.7 (July, 1946), 316.
20 Pei shih 97. 3042b. 32 A. P. Laurie, The Materials of the Painter's Craft in
21 Han shu 96b. 0609a. Europe and Egypt from earliest times to the end of the
22T'ao Hung-ching (Liang dyn.), quoted in PTKM. XVIIIth century, with some account of their preparation
This orpiment was called "Malayan Yellow." dv Li and use (London and Edinburgh, 1910), 219.
Shih-chen (sixteenth century) states that the best33orpi-
De architectura 7. 7.
ment was imported into China by sea-going ships. 34 Greek Herbal 642.
23 Palache, op. cit. 268. It was obtained in the late s5 Nat. Hist. 33.22.
seventh century from Shimotsuke-no-kuni.dw See Rokuro 36 Ibid. 35. 49. Orpiment loses its color by interaction
Uemura,dx " Studies on the Ancient Japanese Pigments," with fresh lime, forming white calcium arsenite and
Bukkyo bijutsu dy 4 (Sept. 1925), 27. For modern sulph-arsenite. See Kenneth C. Bailey, The Elder
occurrences of orpiment in Japan, see A. J. C. Goerts, Pliny's chapters on chemical subjects, Pt. II (London,
Les Produits de la Nature Japonaise et Chinoise (Partie 1932), 222. The same reason is given for its non-desira-
inorganique et min6ralogique, Yokohama, 1878), 176. bility in fresco painting by a Greek compendium of the
2' Daniel V. Thompson, op. cit. 178; A. P. Laurie, fifteenth or sixteenth century; see J. R. Partington,
Greek and Roman Methods of Painting; Some Comments " Chemical Arts in the Mount Athos Manual of Christian
on the Statements made by Pliny and Vitruvius about Iconography," Isis 22 (1934), 144. Cennino Cennini
Wall and Panel Painting (Cambridge, 1913), 11. (fifteenth century) also gives this cause for its rejec-
25 R. Campbell Thompson, op. cit. 46-7, 51. tion. See A. P. Laurie, Materials 124.
26 F. C. J. Spurrell, "Notes on Egyptian Colors," 3T Daniel V. Thompson, op. cit. 176-7.
Archaeological Journal 52 (1895) 231-2. 38 Edward Sullivan, The Book of Kells (5th ed., Lon-
27 Ibid. don, 1952), 60.
28 Lucas, op. cit. 400-1, 414. 39 A. P. Laurie, "Materials in Persian Miniatures,"
29 Ibid. Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts, 3.3
30 Hill, loc. cit. (Jan., 1935), 146.

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 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition 75

media, its reaction with pigments containing lead Orpiment played a small role in early European
and copper, and its instability in oil, which was chemistry (under which I include alchemy, metal-
then beginning to be used as a medium.40 The lurgy, and similar arts). But it has been chiefly
painters of the Renaissance did not like orpiment,known as a pigment, hardly as a reagent. Never-
though it was occasionally used, as by Vandyck.41theless, Pliny tells that the Emperor Caligula had
A text of twelfth century Southern India showsan immense amount of orpiment refined for the
that the artists of that land used orpiment for itsproduction of gold, but the results obtained did
fine yellow effect, and also, mixed with indigo, tonot warrant the expense.47 This cannot be re-
obtain a green paint.42 The illuminations of the garded as an attempt at transmuting elements, for
Persian miniaturists, whose palette derived from arsenic minerals frequently occur in gold ores, and
that of the Byzantines, shows the use of orpimentorpiment may contain a small amount of the
as a pigment in the Near East from the four- yellow metal. Orpiment has also been used,
teenth to the sixteenth century.43 though rarely, as an ingredient of pyrotechnical
devices.48
In former times, orpiment held a significant
place in the Western materia medica, though now
ORPIMENT IN CHINA.
it has largely been replaced by more active (and
poisonous) arsenic compounds, such as the oxide It cannot be told whether orpiment was clearly
(As203) "white arsenic," the arsenolite of the distinguished by name from other yellow pigments
mineralogists.44 The physicians of Rome pre- before the beginning of the Han dynasty. At least,
scribed orpiment mainly as a caustic, an erodent, no such early name has been certainly identified.
and a counter-irritant, and more particularly In for the second century B. c., the name which be-
haemorrhoids, nasal polypi, and all excrescences standard for all time first appears in the
came
and ulcerations of the skin.45 Orpiment also literature of China. In his Tzu-hsiu fu,f Ssu-ma
played an important part in Indian medicine, pri- Hsiang-ju g tells of the land of Yiin-meng in the
marily for skin affections both primary and sec- South in these terms: ". . . the soil there is Cinna-
ondary, such as eczema, leprosy, syphilis, piles and bar, Verditer, Ochre, Chalk, Female Yellow and
so forth. It was also regarded as having apo- White Quartz."49 ( Female Yellow" h is the
tropaic properties, and prescribed against the un- mate of " Male Yellow." i These are orpiment and
wholesome influences of ghosts and demons.46 realgar respectively, and their names symbolize
their affinity and regular occurence in close natural
40 Daniel V. Thompson, op. cit. 178; Arthur H. Church, conjunction. Orpiment was readily distinguished
The Chemistry of Paints and Painting (4th ed., London, by its brilliant golden-yellow color, while realgar,
1915), 184; Gettens and Stout, op. cit. 135; Laurie, on the other hand, normally has an orange or
Greek and Roman Methods 11.
somewhat reddish hue. Indeed the outward aspect
41 Laurie, Materials of the Painter's Craft 219.
42 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, "The Technique and of orpiment suggested an inner connection with
Theory of Indian Painting," Technical Studies in the gold, and T'ao Hung-chingi wrote, early in the
Field of the Fine Arts, 3.2 (October 1934), 59-89. sixth century, that orpiment was the " essence " or
"3 Laurie, in Technical Studies 3. 146.
sperm of gold,k just as azuriteI was the sperm of
44 Bailey, op. cit. 206 reports tests which show the
comparatively slow action of the sulphides on living copper m.50 The lamellar or micaceous cleavage of
tissues, as compared with the virulent oxide. In fact, orpiment was also distinctive. So a fifth century
the sulphides, when pure, are virtually insoluble. For text states, ". . . one lump of orpiment weighing
the comparative toxic qualities of the various arsenic
salts see Arthur Grollman and Donald Slaughter,
Pharmacology and Therapeutics Originally Written by Ocean of Indian Chemistry and Alchemy (Calcutta,
Arthur R. Cushny (13th ed., Philadelphia, 1947), 165-6, 1927), 155-7.
174-5. 47 Nat. Hist. 33.22; and cf. Bailey, op. cit. I (London,
45 Pliny, Nat. Hist. 34.56; Greek Herbal loc. cit.; 1929), 101.
Celsus, books 5 and 6 passim. 48 Tenney L. Davis, The Chemistry of Powder and Ex-
46 Elizabeth Sharpe, An Eight-hundred year old book plosives Vol. I (New York and London, 1941), 55 tells
of Indian Medicine and formulas, translated from the of a sixteenth century fireball containing orpiment and
original very old Hindi into Gujarati character and verdigris.
thence into English (London, 1937), 21, 34, 44, 103-4; ,9"Han shu 572. 0498b. The language is dz.
Garbe, op. cit. 48; Bhudeb Mookerji, Rasa-pala-nidhi or 50 Citation in PTKM.

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76 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

four taels can be split into a thousand pieces." 51 to be discovered (he thought) in greater quantity
In his famous Materia Medica written near the than orpiment.55
close of the sixteenth century, Li Shih-chen n tells Since realgar has generally been regarded in
how to apply the "streak test," still used by China as a more valuable product than orpiment,
modern mineralogists as an aid to the identifica- mines where both of these minerals occurred are
tion of many minerals, to orpiment: material of usually first referred to as sources of realgar.
the best quality will leave an attractively colored Therefore the orpiment localities about to be men-
mark if rubbed on the finger nail.52 tioned were in many cases known long before the
The Chinese alchemists, even before their Euro- dates of the first texts which mention the secon-
pean brethren, had secret names for their reagents, dary mineral. One of the best known of these
designed to conceal their procedures from the un- localities was a deposit in the far southeastern part
initiated, and also to reflect the metaphysical pre- of what is now Kansu province. This region has
suppositions underlying their experiments. We been variously known as Wu-tu,8 Ch'ou-ch'ih,t 56
have a list of such esoteric names for orpiment, Chieh,u 57 and Ch'eng.v58 Orpiment is also a
dating from the T'ang dynasty: product, at least in more recent times, of the Su-
chouw region, far to the northwest in the same
"Blood of the Divine Woman " 0 province.59 Hunan province is also an important
"Mid-month Moon at the Mystic Platform" P
source: the pigment is found in the vicinity of
"Blood of the Yellow Dragon " Q Tz'u-li.x60 Also well-known are the deposits in
"Yellow Security ( ?) r 53 the region of Meng-hua,y 61 and Ta-li,z 62 in mod-
ern Yunnan. Less famous sources are Yeh-lang aa
Before leaving the Chinese names of orpiment,
in Tsang-ko ab (modern Kweichow),63 Tzu ac (mod-
a metaphorical application of the term "Female
ern Shantung),64 iHsi ad in Shu (modern Szech-
Yellow" deserves mention. An eloquent person wan),65 and a place of uncertain identity, Pei-
was said to have orpiment in his mouth.54 Whetheryin." 66 Later in the present paper, when the
this figure is based on the handsome color of the Chinese realgar mines are discussed, more atten-
mineral, analogously to our expression "golden- tion will be paid to the dates of the earliest notices
throated," or derives from a belief in the medical of these places, though the antiquity of the de-
properties of orpiment, cannot be determined. posits in Kansu, Kweichow, and Szechwan is here
Orpiment has been mined in a few localities in sufficiently attested for orpiment. To these may
China, mostly in association with realgar. The be added the poetical reference to Yiin-meng by
traditional theory which purports to explain the
Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju.
relative distribution of the two minerals holds that
It seems likely that the Chinese would have used
the "female" member of the pair, orpiment, is orpiment as a pigment in prehistoric times, but
found where the solar energy (yang) is receivedthein presence of the mineral has not been verified
insufficient quantities, and therefore should be on any object made before the beginning of the
discovered on the shady sides of mountains. How-
ever, the male and female occur regularly together. 55 PTKM.
This is explained by Li Shih-chen as due to the 56 T'ao Hung-ching, quoted in PTKM.
fact that while both sides of a mountain receive z7 Chang Shih-nan,eg Yu-huan chi-wen eb (Sung dyn.,
some of the vital male principle, this is more in TSCC) 2.12
56 PTKM.
abundant on sunny slopes, where realgar is likely
59Kan-su t'ung-chih et (MS. copy in library of Uni-
versity of Washington) 20. 6b.
61 Lei Hsiao, quoted in PTKM. 6o PTKM; Weng Wen-hao,eJ Chung-kuo k'uang-ch'an
62 PTKM chapter 9. The sections on realgar and orpi- chih-liieh,ek Ti-chih chuan-paoel B. 1 (1919) 195.
ment both occur in this chapter of the book; therefore 61 Yiin-nan t'ung-chih em (1835 ed.) 70. 47a; Weng
the chapter will not be identified in subsequent citations. Wen-hao, loc. cit.
I Mei Piao,ea Yao-shih Erh-ya,eb in Tao Tsang,ec 62 Weng Wen-hao, loc. cit.
Tung-shen Sections,ed "Assembled Arts," ee Ssu, Upper 63 Hou Han shu 33. 0709a.
Scroll (i. e. vol. 588). See below, note 143, for another 64 PTKM.
65 Hou Han shu 33. 0709b,, quoting Hua-yang kuo-
Taoist name for orpiment, which I have not been able to
decipher. chih.en
64 Said of Wang Yen.ef See Chin shu 43.1201b. 66 PTKM.

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 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition 77

Christian era. The earliest attribution of such use massicot), which had been prepared in China since
in a literary source refers to the State of Ch'u in ancient times by the oxidation of lead. Orpiment
the latter part of the Chou dynasty, but the source continues to be used as a pigment in modern
is not contemporary. Moreover one version of this China, most of it coming from Talifu in Yunnan.72
text has realgar while another has orpiment.67 At In the Tempy5 period, when the arts of Japan
any rate, the story tells of a man who painted his were still under strong Chinese influence, orpiment
house with arsenic sulphide, whence it acquired the was an important pigment. It is also included in
name " Yellow Hall." This together with Ssu-ma the list in Wamyo-ruiju-sh6 ah of the tenth century,
Hsiang-ju's reference to orpiment along with otherbut it does not appear at all on the twelfth century
mineral pigments in that region may point to veryFujiwara scrolls, where its place is taken by gam-
early working of the arsenic deposit at Tz'u-li, bodge and ochre. This substitution is doubtless
already referred to. due to the presence of lead compounds in these
Orpiment was certainly in use as a pigment pictures.73
in Orpiment is still used in modern
the fifth and sixth centuries of our era, for T'ao Japan.74
Hung-ching states that the golden scaly material The earliest notice of the medical application of
imported from Champa and Transgangetic India orpiment is, not unexpectedly, the Shen-nung pen-
was much prized by the painters of his day,68 ts'ao ching,ai a work of uncertain authorship, some-
though he does not tell us the kind of surface times said to have been compiled in the second
painted. Paintings of a slightly later age, lately
century A. D., although it might easily be earlier or
brought back from Tun-huang by Sir Aurel Stein, later. This source notes the usefulness of orpi-
prove to have been executed entirely in mineral ment for ulcerations, and surprisingly, for bald-
pigments, to the exclusion of the vegetable, and
ness. A virtue it shares in common with realgar,
natural orpiment is one of them.69 The unhappyand for which the latter drug is much more noted,
effects of using orpiment in close proximity to pig-
is its effectiveness as an antidote to the bites of
ments derived from lead were known at least by poisonous reptiles and insects, and for various
the time of the Sung.70 It should be mentioned other noxious substances and evil humors. The
that the " forehead yellow," af a cosmetic ornamentdreams of the Taoist researchers appear in the
popular among ladies of the T'ang dynasty,71 was prescription of orpiment for lightening the cor-
apparently in most cases "lead yellow "ag (i. poreal e. body and averting senility, again a reflec-
tion of the important use of its brother mineral,
67 Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang,eo Yen-fan lu ep (A.D. 1175; ed. of realgar, in alchemy.75 Lei Hsiao,aj of the fifth
Hsiieh-hsin t'ao-yiian; eq citing Chiin-kuo chih) 3. 15b
has the former, while Wu-yiieh ch'un-ch'in,er as quoted
century, tells how the raw mineral should be pre-
in T'ai-p'ing yii-lan es 988. 2b, has the latter.
pared for use by the physician: it must be mixed
68 Quoted in PTKM. with various potent herbs, washed, dried, ground,
69 Arthur Waley, A Catalogue of Paintings Recovered and so forth. But most importantly, the pharma-
from Tun-huang by Sir Aurel Stein, K. C. I. E., preserved
cists must take care to avoid the presence of
in the Sub-department of Oriental prints and drawings
women, children, dogs, recent fornicators, accursed
in the British Museum, and in the Museum of Central
people, effeminate men, convicts, and filthy persons,
Asian Antiquities, Delhi (London, 1931), xlvi. On the
other hand; orpiment was not used in the murallest
paint-
the orpiment become black and deleterious.76
ings in the Tun-huang caves, being there replaced by a Ko Hung,ak the great fourth century apologist
vegetable dye. This was doubtless due to the presence
of lead paints in the same pictures. See the study of
R. J. Gettens on Tun-huang pigments cited by Langdon 72 Ernest Watson, op. cit. 207.
Warner, Buddhist wall-paintings, A Study of a Ninth- 73 Rokur6 Uemura, op. cit. 27-29, and Uemura, Old
century Grotto at Wan Fo Hsia (Cambridge, 1938), 9. Japanese Pigments Used in the Scroll Paintings of
70 Chang Shih-nan, loc. cit. PTKM also quotes a Tao- Takayosi-Genji," Toy6 bijutsuez 24 (May, 1937) 66.
ist pharmacologist of unknown date, known by the "4 F. de Mely, Les Lapidaires de l'antiquite et du
epithet of T'u-su chen-chuin,et to the same effect. The moyen age Tome I, Les lapidaires chinois (Paris, 1896),
former authority warns against shao fen eu (i. e. ch'ien 81; A. J. C. Geerts, op. cit. 176. Geerts also mentions
shao ev), namely massicot and other pigments produced its use to color papers, as an ink, as a size to prevent
by roasting metallic lead, while the latter authority absorption of ink, and, mixed with indigo, by draughts-
mentions lead and ceruse (hu fen ew). men for a green color.
71 See Yoshito Harada,ex T6-a ko-bunka kenkyt ey 76 Pen ching, as cited in PTKM.
(Tokyo, 1944) 5-6. 76 Quoted in PTKM.

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78 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

for alchemy, pays little attention to orpiment, as REALGAR - INTRODUCTORY

compared with realgar, but he prescribes " female
Realgar (AsS) is a soft, sectile mineral, often
pills " made of orpiment, azurite, alum and mag-
powdery. It has a resinous luster, and varies in
netite (representing the cardinal colors yellow, color from aurora-red to orange-yellow. It occurs
blue, white and black), to be taken only in con- commonly in association with orpiment and other
junction with "male pills," in which realgar ap- arsenic minerals, with stibnite, and with lead,
pears along with the red mineral, cinnabar, and silver and gold ores. It is frequently encountered
blue vitriol, as an antidote for the chills of win-
as a sublimation from volcanoes and hot springs.86
ter.77 T'ao Hung-ching recommends orpiment for Aristotle classed realgar among the colored stones
nasal polypi,78 while Han Pao-sheng,al who wrote which are produced by a dry exhalation from the
the Shu pen-ts'ao am in the tenth century, advo- earth, along with sulphur, cinnabar and ochre, in
cates its application to diseases of the spleen, on contrast to the metals, which are the product of a
the traditional grounds that that organ is gov- vaporous exhalation.87 Theophrastus groups it
erned by the Earth Element, and therefore by the with orpiment in an " ashy " subdivision of fossile
color Yellow.79 Li Shih-chen himself adds to these
substances, in contrast to the argillaceous, like
epilepsy, abdominal pains, disorders of the blood,
ochre and reddle, and the sandy, such as the
difficult coughing, and chills and fever, and gives verditers.88 The description of Dioscorides is
a recipe for the cure of incontinence of urine, in classic: " But that Sandaraca is best esteemed that
which orpiment is prepared with ginger and salt.80 is fully red, brittle, easy to be beaten small, and
Orpiment continues to be used in modern China pure, looking like Cinnabaris in the colour, & also
for these purposes.81 having a brimstone-like smell." 89
Although the role of orpiment in alchemy and In classical antiquity, realgar was uniformly
gold-making is very slight, there are occasional known by its Greek name, cravSapac)i in Aristotle
references to its relation with gold. So T'ao and Theophrastus, aavSapaXx7 in Dioscorides. The
Hung-ching says, " If gold-sperm is fumigated,Latin
it reflex of this form was used in Roman
gives birth to Female Yellow." 82 Li Shih-chen
times: sandaraca/sandaracha; so Pliny and Vitru-
states that it can be used to manufacture gold, andvius. This word continued to appear in European
that it will soften the five metals, dry quicksilver,
languages until quite recently, especially as a
convert sulphur, and subdue calomel.83 No tech- translation-word, as the sandarach of John Hill's
nical details of these processes are related by the
translation of Theophrastus. It has been sug-
author, while Ko Hung passes them over in silence.
gested that this word derives from a root *sand-/
An eleventh century text gives a special tech-*sard " red." 90 Our modern English word " real-
gar" comes, by way of Spanish, from Arabic
nical application of orpiment: it should be painted
on paper when a mistake in writing has been made.
.;Wl .eJ "powder of the mine." This term, of
The result is a permanent erasure which does not
course, did not appear in Europe until medieval
damage the paper.84 In recent times, orpimenttimes. Modern German has its own expressive
has been used in dyeing, calico printing, pyro-
terms for realgar, such as the Reuschgeel of Agri-
technics and depilatories.85 cola (sixteenth century), the Rauschgelb of Wal-
lerius (seventeenth century), and the Rauschrot
of Haiiy (nineteenth century).9'
Turning to Asia, a term used during the Third
7" Pao-p'u-tzu fa (ed. of Tzu-shu po-chia fb) 3.21b.
78 Ming-i pieh-lu,eC quoted in PTKM.
79 PTKM. 86 Palache, op. cit. 255.
80 PTKM. 8? Meteorologica 3. 6.
81 Weng Wen-hao, loc. cit.; Ernest Watson, toe. cit. 88 John Hill, op. cit. 103.
82 Quoted in PTKM. 89 Greek Herbal 642.
83 PTKM. 90 R. J. Forbes, op. cit. 267. Pliny also refers to a
84 Shen Kua,fd Meng-ch'i pi-t'anfe (TSCC) 1.4.pigment
This called sandyx. This appears to have been a red
source states that the "female yellow" used for lead
thismade by roasting ceruse, and used to adulterate
purpose was called "lead yellow" in antiquity. realgar.
The See Nat. Hist. 35.22, and Bailey, op. cit. II.
215.
author has confused orpiment with massicot.
85 Ernest Watson, loo. cit. I1 Palache, toc. cit.

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 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition 79

Dynasty of Ur, im guskin "red paste " or " golden Ise was used in Japan in the seventh century.103
paste," may well have referred to realgar.92 Other It can still be found there,106 as well as in other
ancient Mesopotamian expressions, both Sumerian localities, particularly in the hot-springs region of
and Semitic, connoting " gold paint," " rouge," southern Hokkaido.107 Other deposits of realgar
" face bloom " etc. may refer to the same mineral, are known in Roumania, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia,
but it is not easy to distinguish realgar from orpi- Macedonia, Saxony, Switzerland, Naples, Corsica
ment among them.93 and the United States.108
In India, the Sanskrit word manahkild " spirit- Compared with orpiment, realgar has been little
stone," and various other words containing manas, used as a pigment, because it lacks the brilliance
stand for realgar,94 the first and most common of of the formal mineral, and does not show the
these being the original of the common Indic term same thinly laminated structure. Moreover, real-
mansil.95
gar tends to disintegrate to a mixture of orpiment
As to the locations of realgar mines outside of (As2Ss) and arsenolite (As203), the poisonous
China, Pliny tells of one on the island of Topazus oxide, on long exposure.109 Nonetheless it occa-
in the Red Sea, but he says that the mineral was sionally appears in ancient and medieval paintings.
not imported thence.96 He adds elsewhere that it Some was detected mixed with the orpiment in the
could be found in gold and silver mines.97 Another Eighteenth Dynasty murals of Tell el-Amarna,
locality known to the classical M1editerranean but it is never found by itself there.110 Judging
world was on the Hypanis River in Pontus.98 Also
from the color lexicon of ancient Assyria, realgar
in Pontus was a mountain named cav&apacKovpytov
was used as well as orpiment there."' A pot of
" Realgar Mine," near Pompeiopolis, which was realgar was found in the ruins of a theatre of
already much undermined by the beginning of the Corinth which dates from the fourth century
Christian era, and had been abandoned because of B. C.,112 and the same pigment was in use by the
the death of workmen from the fumes.99 There Corinthians of the second century B. C.113 The
was also a place in Bithynia called ~avSapa,cK-, Romans
pre- as well as the Greeks painted with it-
sumably because of the mineral found there.100 its presence has been noted in Roman ruins at
Realgar was also found in Mysia and Cappadocia.101 Silchester in England.114 Pliny's remarks about
This realgar of the Roman East was also known the substitution of burnt ceruse for realgar
to the Chinese by the third century.102 The sul- strongly suggest that he knew the latter as a pig-
phide could be dug along with its yellow sister in ment, though he is mainly concerned with its
the Caucasus area, and at Mt. Demawand in medicinal qualities.115
Persia.103 This Persian realgar was regardedInby the illuminated manuscripts of late medieval
the medieval Chinese alchemists as inferior to Europe, realgar appears primarily as a constituent
other varieties.104 Realgar from the province of
Tung-shen Section, "Assembled Arts," Ssu (i.e. Vol.
92 A. Leo Oppenheim, Catalogue of the Cuneiform 589).
Tablets of the Wilberforce Eames Babylonian Collection 106 Rokuro Uemura, " Studies," Bukkyo bijutsu, 4
in the New York Public Library; Tablets of the time (September 1925), 27-8.
of the Third Dynasty of Ur (American Oriental Series, 106 A. J. C. Geerts, op. cit. 179.
Vol. 32, New Haven, 1948), 240. 107 Ibid. 176-7, 179. Geerts notes that Japanese real-
93 R. Campbell Thompson, op. cit. 46-51, 57. gar was regarded as inferior, so that Chinese merchants
94 Richard Garbe, op. cit. 44. of Nagasaki imported it from their homeland.
95 Elizabeth Sharpe, op. cit. passim. 108 Palache, op. cit. 255.
96 Nat. Hist. 35. 22. 109 Ibid. 257. Cf. Arthur H. Church, op. cit. 184.
97 Ibid. 33. 22. 110 F. J. C. Spurrell, op. cit. 232.
98 Vitruvius, De architectura 7. 7. 111 R. Campbell Thompson, op. cit. 51, 57.
99 Strabo, 12.3.40 (see trans. of H. L. Jones, Vol. 5). 112 William Foster, " Chemistry and Grecian Archae-
1 ? Georg Wissowa, Paulys Real-Encyclopddie der ology, Journal of Chemical Education," 10. 5 (May.
Classischen Altertumswissenschaft Vol. 1A: 2 (Stutt- 1933), 276; Earle R. Caley, op. cit. 316.
gart, 1920), 2262. 113 Marie Farnsworth, " Ancient Pigments-Particu-
101 Wissowa, op. cit. Vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1896), 1274. larly Second Century B. c. Pigments from Corinth,"
102 San Kuo chih (Wei chih) 30.1006c, quoting Wei Journal of Chemical Education, 28.2 (February, 1951),
liieh, about the minerals of Ta-ch'in. 73.
108 R. J. Forbes, op. cit. 268. 11 Arthur H. Church, op. cit. 184.
104 Chih-shih-pu wu-chiu-shu-chieh,tt in Tao Tsang, 5 Nat. Hist. 35. 20, 35. 22, 34. 55.

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80 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

of glair, an illuminator's medium made of beaten sand" and "yellow sand" respectively.27 None-
white of egg, which it keeps from decomposing. theless their roles are not nearly as significant as
This was standard practice from the fourteenth to those of sulphur, mercury, and gold. We shall
the sixteenth century.116 At the same time, it was observe that in Chinese alchemy realgar (but not
sometimes employed as a pigment,117 as in the orpiment) is of great importance, but still in an
bright reds of the ninth century Book of Kells.118inferior position as compared with cinnabar, the
Cennino Cennini lists it as a pigment in the fif- reagent par excellence in the Far East.
teenth century, but the painters of the Renaissance The history of arsenic chemistry in the West
tended to reject it, along with orpiment, and foris obscure to the present writer, but it is said that
the same reasons, though they knew how to make the technique of separating the metal from its sul-
an artificial realgar by heating orpiment.119 I phides was known to the medieval Muslims, the
have not observed any reference to its presence in process being referred to in the writings ascribed
to the great Jabir (Geber).128
ancient Indian paintings, but it has been detected
on the wall paintings of Kara Khoto in Central
Asia (eleventh to thirteenth centuries).120 REALGAR IN CHINA
Realgar has a role in the pharmacopoeia of the The earliest surviving Chinese description of
West very similar to that of orpiment. Its use as realgar is that of the third century pharmacologist,
a medicine in ancient Assyria may be inferred; 121 Wu P'u.a He regarded this mineral as a variety
Aristotle regarded it as poisonous,122 and Galen of cinnabar, which in fact it resembles somewhat,
prescribed it to kill scorpions.123 Celsus lists it and states that whereas cinnabar is found on the
along with orpiment for most of the purposes forshady (i. e. " feminine ") side of a mountain, real-
which he recommends the latter, but he gives real- gar is located on the sunny (i. e. "masculine ")
gar alone as a poison for lice.124 Pliny and Dios- side, hence the usual Chinese name " Male Yel-
corides agree on its caustic properties, and also low," for realgar.129 This is rather curious, since
recommend it with honey for hoarseness, and to cinnabar is not elsewhere linked with realgar, and
produce a clear and melodious voice.125 In India, the matching name " Female Yellow " had already
too, it was used for skin disorders and other affec- for several centuries been preempted for orpiment,
tions for which orpiment is prescribed, and for while both cinnabar and orpiment are mentioned
cough and asthma, as with the Romans. It wassimultaneously in the rhapsody of Ssu-ma Hsiang-
also thought to be especially effective in spiritual ju, already referred to several times. At any rate,
disorders, and as an antidote to poisons.126 The the distinctive characteristic of realgar is its color,
last of these beliefs seems not to occur in the varying from orange to red, and the Chinese,
Mediterranean world, but we shall see that it though
was they classify it as a " yellow," have de-
very important in China. scribed the finest realgar as having the color of a
coxcomb,130 hence its modern name in both China
Both realgar and orpiment played some role in
and Japan ," chicken-cap stone." ao 131 Lei Hsiao,
primitive European alchemy. Those mysterious
in the fifth century of our era, gives as an appro-
figures, Maria and Kleopatra, allude to them, and
priate analogy the color of a francolin's liver.132
they appear in the pseudo-Democritus as "red
127 R. J. Forbes, op. cit. 269.
l6 Daniel V. Thompson, op. cit. 55. 128 W. T. Sedgwick and H. W. Tyler, A Short History
117 Ibid. 177. of Science (revised by H. W. Tyler and R. P. Bigelow,
18 Edward Sullivan, op. cit. 60. New York, 1939), 192.
119 A. P. Laurie, Materials of the Painter's Craft 208, x19 As quoted in PTKM, and also in T'ai-p'ing yii-lan
220. 988. 2b.
120 Gettens and Stout, op. cit. 135, 152. 30 Pao-p'u-tzu 4.5b; and T'ao Hung-ching, quoted in
121 R. Campbell Thompson, op. cit. 46-7. PTKM.
122 The presence of the oxide in the sulphide would 131 In modern Far Eastern literature the old name of
make it so. realgar, hsiung-huang, is applied to orpiment, while the
123 William Foster, op. cit. 276. expression tz'u-huang has disappeared from ordinary
124 Celsus, De Medicina 6. 6. use. For an example of the resulting confusion, see F.
125 Nat. Hist. 34.55; Greek Herbal loc. cit. de Mely, op. cit. xxxv-xxxvi, 79-80, 202-205, or any
26 Elizabeth Sharpe, op. cit. 34-5, 103-4; Richard modern mineralogical text.
Garbe, op. cit. 44; Bhudeb Mookerji, op. cit. 196 iff. 1B2 Quoted in PTKM.

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 81
SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

The translucency of fine realgar was correctly Sperm "; ba " Stone within the Great Decad's
Head"; bb " Lunar Soul at Cinnabar Moun-
noted by writers of the Sung dynasty.133 The most
famous Chinese realgar, that of Mt. Wu-tu, istain "; bc " Deep Yellow Period ( ?) "; bd c" Divi
accurately described by Su Sung ap in the eleventhMan's Sperm ";be "Divine Man's Blood." bf
century; he states that it comes in pods in a rocky Among the earliest texts to give definite locali-
river gorge. The matrix is sometimes called ties where realgar had been found is the Shan-hai
"White Fresh Rock" and sometimes " Glaucous ching. This book lists the expression " Male Yel-
Smoky Rock." The lumps vary in size from that low" among the natural products of fourteen
of a pea to that of a walnut. The mineral is pitted mountains, to wit: Kao,bg Huang-jen,bh Ch'ang-
with holes, and has a deep red, almost purple sha,bi Huai-chiang,bi Hsiian-yiian,bk Yu,bl Chung-
color.134 Most of the Chinese pharmacologists, ch'ii,bm Ch'iao-ming,bn Chien,b? Po-pien,bP Yang-
like the Greek and Roman physicians, regarded hua,bq Nii-chi,br Kuei,bs Ta-fu.bt 144 A problem
realgar as poisonous,135 as impure varieties may be.arises from the fact that in eleven of these places,
Various names other than hsiung-huang have the term "male yellow" is prefixed by the word
sometimes been applied to realgar. The earliest of ch'ing bu " glaucous; verditer." Some scholiasts
these seems to be " Yellow Metal Stone " aq (i. havee. asserted that this is an epithet " glaucous,"
" gold-stone "), found in the Sheng-nung pen-ts'ao and that " glaucous male-yellow " is a special
ching.'36 " Stony Yellow," e properly a collective name for orpiment. Others allege that this is a
name for the sulphides of arsenic,'37 has sometimes noun " verditer," and that the whole phrase means
been used as a varietal name for realgar.s38 "verditer and realgar." The modern historian of
" Fume Yellow " ar is applied to an impure kind minerals in China, H. T. Chang,145 rejects both of
used to fumigate boils and other skin disorders.139 these views, because (1) "glaucous male yellow"
The epithet " Fetid Yellow " as also occurs, for a is self-contradictory: neither realgar nor orpiment
dark-colored variety with an evil arsenical odor.140 ever has a green-blue color; and (2) ch'ing never
In recent times, the term " Male Essence> at has appears alone in the Shan-hai ching, hence it can-
been applied to particularly fine specimens of the not be a noun meaning verditer. His somewhat
mineral.141 The following names have also been inconclusive solution is that the expression means
noted: "Luminous Yellow," au "Earthy Yel- " glaucous male-yellow," but that this term refers
low," av and " Lumpy Yellow." aw 142 In the T'ang to a glaucous stone, somehow resembling realgar,
dynasty, there was also a considerable number of but impossible of identification. I find this argu-
fantastic names, the special property of the ment quite unconvincing, as well as any other ex-
alchemists: "Vermeil Sparrow's Sinew "; ax planation based upon the premise that ch'ing is
"White Tumulus "; ay " Yellow Slave "; az " Man's here a qualifier in the sense of "glaucous." The
word ch'ing appears often in early texts, leaving
133 Su Sung, quoted in PTKM, and Chang Shih-nan,
loc. cit. 143 Mei Piao, loc. cit. The common expression " stony
114 Su Sung, quoted in PTKM. yellow" also appears in this list. The first graph of
135 See authorities cited in PTKM, e.g. Chen Ch'iian another name fl eludes certain identification. No doubt
of the early seventh century. it is the same as the last graph of an esoteric name for
130 Quoted in PTKM. orpiment fm in the same book. Also there appears here
137 See Ch'en Ts'ang-ch'i fg (eighth century), quoted *Xi]t-lji-kat fn (modern ch'i-li-chia), obviously a foreign
in PTKM. loan-word, and presumably Indic, but I have been unable
138 E. g. Su Kung fh (seventh century), quoted in to identify it. Another word for " realgar" has been
PTKM. The name " Stone Yellow " is also found in T'ao suggested by Homer H. Dubs, in his " The Beginnings of
Hung-ching. Alchemy," Isis 38.1-2.71, where he takes the word fo
139 Su Kung in PTKM. of Huai-nan-tzu to refer to that mineral. The evidence
140 E. g. Su Sung in PTKM. is rather slight.
14 As in Hsii-hsiu Shan-hsi-sheng t'ung-chih k'ao fi 144 References in the SPTK edition: 1.17b, 1. 19a,
(1934), 192.14a, to that from Mount Wu-tu, and in H. 1. 20a, 1.22b, 1.25b, 1. 27a-b, 1.30a, 1. 32b-33a, 2.4a,
T. Chang,fJ "Lapidarium Sinicum, A Study of the Rocks, 2.7a, 2.12b, 2.20b, 2.31b, 2.31b respectively. It is
Fossils and Metals as known in Chinese Literature," fk strange that the term " female yellow " does not appear
Memoir of the Geological Survey of China,el Ser. B, No.
anywhere, despite the fact that the Shan-hai ching
2, (2nd ed., Peking, December, 1927), 213, to that from seems particularly concerned with places where artists'
Kweichow. pigments may be found.
"42 Ernest Watson, op. cit. 509. 146 Chang, op. cit. 346-353.

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82 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

the Shan-hai ching aside for the moment, as a self- wintertime in connection with special ceremonies.153
sufficient substantive meaning "verditer." Even According to Chang Yii-hsi cC (eleventh century),
in the Shan-hai ching we have the parallel expres- the river got its name from the mineral.154 Ling-
sion ch'ing pi hsiung huang,bv which must be ana- ling, Shih-men, and Tz'u-li x are names for the
lysed as ch'ing pi and hsiung huang. The frequent same area from different periods of history, and
occurrence of ch'ing in conjunction with hsiung realgar was still excavated there during the Ch'ing
huang in this text probably results from the pre- period.155 It is likely, too, that "Yellow-stone
occupation of its compilers with the mineral pig- Mountain," cd in the vicinity of these same gorges,
ments available in every locality. In any case, was named for the pigment.'56
Mr. Chang places the three mountains for which Equally famous with the Hunan realgar mines
the problem does not arise, namely, Mt. Kao, are Mt.those of southeastern Kansu, at Wu-tu and
Chung-ch'ii, and Mt. Nii-chi, in the province Ch'ou-ch'ih,t
of in the area later designated Chieh,u
Szechwan, which according to independent sources, and the neighboring region, which was inhabited
was an early source of realgar. in ancient times by the people called Tang-
This Szechwan realgar, found at Hsi,ad is men- ch'ang.e 157 The earliest reference to these work-
tioned along with orpiment, cinnabar and other ings seems to be in Pao-p'u-tzu.158 The mines
colored rocks by the Hou Han shu.146 Realgar were was therefore operated in the fourth century, per-
still extracted during the Ch'ing dynasty haps as a earlier. After this period they are referred
secondary product of the silver mines in the same to repeatedly by alchemists and pharmacologists.
district.147 In general, the Wu-tu realgar was highly rated for
Realgar and orpiment were also brought in from its handsome color, while that of the adjacent
the country of the Yeh-lang aa people, in what is
Tang-ch'ang area was considered inferior.159 Dur-
now Kweichow, during the Han period.148 In ing the early part of the seventh century, excep-
modern times, realgar has been a product of Yung- tionally large lumps of the mineral were found in
feng-chou bw in Nan-lung-fubx in the same re- the Tang-ch'ang deposit, but they were of very
gion.149 This has, according to one authority,poor quality.160 The writers of the Sung dynasty
recently become the most prized Chinese realgar.150 continued to praise the realgar of Wu-tu, and so
Taking Chinese history as a whole, the best-it would appear that these mines were still being
known and most highly praised sources of theexploited in the eleventh century.16' They were
mineral were in the provinces of Kansu and worked in the Ming dynasty,'62 not only for the
Hunan, though there is no evidence that thesepigment itself, but also because the realgar was
mines were worked before the fourth century of the used to adulterate cinnabar. These diggings were
Christian era.151 The Hunan deposit was revealed also active during the Ch'ing period.164 Tun-
by a landslide on a mountain in Nan-p'ing by in
huang, far to the northwest, also produced some
A. D. 320.'15a This was the region later known as
realgar, at least in the sixth century, but this
Shih-men,bz which, according to T'ao Hung-ching,source seems not to have been used in later
became an important source of realgar when the
periods.165
Kansu mines were made inaccessible to the Chi-
nese in the fifth century.152 The Shui-ching chu ca
153 Shui-ching chu 37.16a.
(sixth century) states that the natives dug the 154 Quoted in PTKM.
mineral out of the rocks in the bed of the Huang 155 Ch'ing shih k'ao 5.18a.
(Yellow) River at Ling-ling cb in Hunan in the 56Hu-nan t'ung-chihft (1885 ed.) 61.42a; Weng
Wen-hao, op. cit. 195.
146 Hou Han shu 33.0709b. Cf. quotation from Hua- 17 Apparently the realgar of Kung-ch'ang-fu,tu in
yang kuo-chih in Ssu-ch'uan t'ung-chih fp (1816 ed.) 74.Kan-su t'ung-chih 20. 2a, refers to these same deposits.
28a, to the same effect. 168 Pao-p'u-tzu 2. 28a.
147 Ch'ing shih k'ao fq 5. 17b, for Hsi-yang.tr 169 So T'ao Hung-ching, quoted in PTKM.
18 Hou Han shu 33.0709a. "Io Su Kung, quoted in PTKM.
1" Kuei-chou t'ung-chih fs (1741 ed.) 15.7a. "61 See Su Sung in PTKM, and Chang Shih-nan loc. cit.
160 H. T. Chang, op. cit. 213. 1 2 Ming i-t'ung chih fv 35. 28a.
151 Unless we take Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju's reference to the 63 Li Shih-chen, PTKM.
orpiment of Yiin-meng as pointing to them. 164 Hsii-hsiu Shan-hsi-sheng t'ung-chih k'ao 192.14a;
151a Chin shu 29. 1166c. A. J. C. Geerts, op. cit. 179.
152 Quoted in PTKM. 166 T'ao Hung-ching, Ming-i pieh-lu, in PTKM. Possi-

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 SOHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition 83

The realgar mines of Yuinnan, important in of realgar to rejuvenate the human body; indeed
modern times,166 apparently came to the attention he states that a preparation of the mineral with
of the Chinese first in the T'ang dynasty, when copper and mercury will restore the sight, darken
that region was still controlled by the Thais of the hair, and cause fallen teeth to grow again.174
Nan-chao. The mineral was found on the river He states, however, that inferior realgar, which,
lacking the red brilliance of the best Wu-tu mate-
called Meng-she,cf the district later entitled Meng-
hua-fu,cg south of Ta-li.'67 The realgar was ex- rial, is distinguished by its yellow color, is suitable
cavated from a mountain called by the Chinese only for ordinary medicines, and may not be
Shih-mu,h " Stone Mother," and alternately applied to the divine purpose of bringing super-
named Shih-huang, " Stony Yellow." 168 natural vitality.175 These notions have maintained
In addition to the better known localities, T'ao
themselves wherever and whenever the doctrines of
Hung-ching mentions realgar from Shih-hsing,i the early alchemists have continued in vogue.'756
in modern Kwangtung,'69 and the mineral was also It was believed by Su Sung (eleventh century)
mined in Kuo-hua-t'u-chou c in Kwangsi during that realgar was used by the physicians of the
the Ch'ing dynasty, but this source was soon ex- ancient Chou dynasty as specific against ulcers.
hausted.170 He cites in evidence of this the statement of the
There is little to be said about the use of realgar
Han scholiast Cheng Hsiian ck to the effect that the
as a pigment in China. Li Shih-chen mentions" it,
five poisons" used by the Chou experts in inter-
saying that it yields a yellow color when ground
nal medicine for this purpose 176 were thought in
fine.171 So say also writings of the nineteenth and
his own day to be chalcanthite (blue vitriol),
twentieth centuries,172 but ancient references to cinnabar, realgar, alum, and magnetite, that is,
such a use are lacking, and nowhere is there any the mineral representatives of the universal five-
indication that it was regarded as at all compar-color doctrine. Whether or not this view was cor-
able to orpiment for painting, as indeed it is not. rect, it is very possible that arsenic salts were used
On the other hand, realgar has been importanton ulcerations by the pre-Han doctors. Lei Hsiao
in Chinese medicine since antiquity. Its virtues (fifth century) gives a complex recipe for prepar-
are basically of three sorts, and all three of theseing realgar for medicinal use. This includes
are mentioned in the Shen-nung pen-ts'ao ching. mixing the mineral with a large amount of lico-
In short, they were probably well established inrice, mallow, oil-beetle, and an unknown flower.
principle in the Han dynasty. They are: (1) asThe mixture is ground up, washed, heated, pow-
a general restorative and rejuvenator; for lighten- dered and dried, before it can be put to use.177
ing the body to the condition of a deity or TaoistSun Ssu-miao,el a seventh-century pharmacist,
sylph; (2) for specific diseases, notably chills andstates on the other hand that realgar must always
fever, scrofula, ulcers, abcesses, and necrosis; (3)be boiled in oil over a period of nine days before
against insect and reptile poisons. These applica-it can be taken internally.178 Li Shih-chen gives
tions of the drug are mentioned again and again,the alternate method of boiling with rice-vinegar
with some variations, in all of the Chinese medical and radish juice.179 To the diseases for which
writings down to the time of Li Shih-chen himself.arsenic sulphide had traditionally been prescribed,
Ko Hung, of course, makes much of the ability
mostly skin diseases, Shih-chen adds alcoholism
bly this was the mine that produced the orpiment used 17 Pen ching quoted in PTKM.
in the paintings found by Stein at Tun-huang. 174 Pao-p'u-tzu 1. 22a-b.
166 See Yiin-nan t'ung-chih fw (1835 ed.) 26. 34b-35a. 176 Ibid. 2.28a-b.
70. 47a; Weng Wen-hao, loc. cit.; Ernest Watson, op. cit. 175 I am strongly reminded of the peasants and moun-
509.
taineers of Central Europe who ingest arsenic regularly
167 Fan Ch'o,fx Man shu f (in Chieh-hsi ts'un she
for a sense of glowing health, great endurance, and a
ts'ung-k'an fz) 32b. 33a.
rosy complexion. See Carl Joseph Steiner, Das Mineral.
168 Yiin-nan t'ung-chih loc. cit. reich nach seiner Stellung in Mythologie und Volks-
169 In PTKM.
glauben, in Sitte und Sage, in Geschichte und Litteratur,
170 Kuang-hsi t'ung-chih ga (1891 reprint of 1800 im ed.)Sprichwort und Volksfest (Gotha, 1895), 66-7.
92. 23b.
178 Chou li, T'ien kuan, Yang-i.9b
171 PTKM. 177 Quoted in PTKM.
17 Hs&i-hsiu Shan-hsi-sheng t'ung-chih k'ao 192. 14a;
178 Quoted in PTKM.
Ernest Watson, op. cit. 509. 179 PTKM.

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84 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

and vertigo.180 Realgar continues to have a place A further generalization was made about the
in the Chinese pharmacopoeia of the twentieth miraculous virtue of realgar: it was regarded as a
century.181 general apotropaion, the bane of every sort of
The special virtue of realgar as an antidote to noxious reptile and evil spirit. There was a tradi-
venoms has been emphasized by writers of every tion that the gigantic serpents on the Round
period. Ko Hung, for instance, states that snake- Hill P in the country of the immortals could be
bite may be cured by the simple process of rubbing exorcized with essence of realgar.191 Indeed this
fragments of the drug into the wound.182 T'ao potent drug is able to kill all spectres, demons,
Hung-ching adds that it is also effective against malignant emanations, and even to give protection
the vegetable poison false-hellebore (Veratrum).183against weapons.'92 T'ao Hung-ching tells that it
Chen Ch'iian cm (seventh century) prescribes itis effective against internal disorders caused by
against all poisons and malignancies.184 The Ta- ghosts.193 Su Kung (seventh century) states that
ming jih-hua pen-ts'ao,cn a tenth century compila- it should be swallowed as protection against every
tion, alleges that realgar can be effectively applied manner of evil thing.194 A story written in the
to any wound made by an insect, a reptile, or a thirteenth century tells of a man who was saved
wild beast.185 Even the great Sung poet, Su from the clutches of a. river-demon by the presence
Tung-p'o, is said to have prescribed swallowing of a little
a realgar in his hair.194a
bolus compounded of realgar, alum and wax,Not as only could realgar repel malignant beings,
antidote for poisons.186 These include the con- but it had also the reverse influence on benevolent
coctions co of professional poisoners, made spirits.
from So Ko Hung advised the ingestion of a
crushed centipedes, snakes, etc., a point which Li preparation by alchemists to compel the
realgar
Shih-chen makes much of.187 attendance and service of the divine Jade Woman,
Connected with this potency against poisons on who could be recognized by the golden spot above
the one hand, and the effectiveness of arsenic as an her nose.195
insecticide on the other,188 was the belief that real-
In the Imperial Treasury at Nara in Japan, the
gar, taken internally, had the power to quell " ser- Shosoin,cq is an egg-shaped object of prepared
pents" lodged within the body itself. A T'ang realgar, of Chinese origin, presumably transmitted
dynasty wonder-worker gave a sick man a dose ofto Japan in the eighth century as a great medicinal
realgar, saying that his illness was the result of treasure.196 No one, it seems, has suggested a
swallowing a hair, and the patient forthwith specific purpose for this artifact. But it must
vomited a snake.189 Another tale of the samehave been intended as a talisman against demons
period tells of an official who had an immature
and reptiles. There are many references to such
dragon driven from his belly by a potion of objects
niter in Chinese literature. Already in the
and realgar.190 We may surmise that some of these
fourth century Ko Hung wrote that one could pro-
loathsome creatures were parasitical worms. tect oneself against malignant spitting reptiles by
carrying an egg-shaped ball composed of realgar
O80 PTKM.
and chives.l97 Elsewhere the same writer says
181 Weng Wen-hao, loc. cit.
182 Pao-p'u-tzu 4. 5b.
that a man should "gird himself " with realgar
18s Quoted in PTKM. before entering a forest, in order to ward off rep-
'8 Quoted in PTKM.
185 Quoted in PTKM.
191 Yiian-chung chi,gh quoted in T'ai-p'ing yii-lan 988.
8 Quoted in PTKM.
2b; Pao-p'u-tzu 4. 5b.
s8 PTKM. 92 Shen-nung pen-ts'ao ching, in PTKM.
188 This seems to be the sense of a passage in the
93 Quoted in PTKM.
Wan pi shu,gc attributed to Huai-nan Wang,gd cited in
'4 Quoted in PTKM.
T'ai-p'ing yii-lan 988. 2b: " Burn Male Yellow by night,
and the water insects form ranks! The water insects
194a Lu Ying-lung,gi Kua-i chih gj (in Shuo fu gk) llb-
12a.
detect the fetid odor of the Male Yellow, and all rush to
the fire! " In modern China, realgar is sprinkled on hot 95 Pao-p'u-tzu 2. 28b.
coals to overcome mosquitoes; see A. J. C. Geerts, op. 96 See Shisoin tana-betsu mokurokusg North 111, No.
cit. 179. 171, and Koichi Kimura, "Ancient Drugs preserved in
I89 T'ang shu 204. 4106a. the ShosSin," Occasional Papers of the Kansai Asiatic
Society, No. 1 (Kyoto, February, 1954).
190 Cheng Ch'u-hui,ge Ming-huang tsa-lu gf (T'ang-tai
ts'ung-shu gg 4. 16a-b). 197 Pao-p'u-tzu 4.7a.

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 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition 85

tiles.198 Later Chen Ch'iian advocated that travel- (1) Cinnabar Sand er (cinnabar)
lers wear a piece of it as a sure talisman against (2) Yellow Metal cx (gold)
spirits, tigers, wolves, and venomous creatures.199 (3) White Silver Cy (silver)
The Pen-ts'ao kcang-mu outlines procedures de- (4) Various Fomes cz (Fomes fungi)
signed to give safety from incubi and other night- (5) Five Jadestones da (jades of different colors)
mares. A piece the size of a date is to be worn (6) Cloud Mother db (mica)
under the left armpit, or on top of the head, for(7) Luminous Pearl dc (pearl)
security against dream-demons; a woman who has (8) Male Yellow (realgar)
had intercourse with an incubus reveals her situa- (9) Rations Left by T'ai-i and Yii dd (botryoi-
tion by talking and laughing to herself, and by dal limonite) 203
her general melancholy: she can be relieved by
A number of recipes for drugs whose purpose is
fumigating her genitals with a ball of realgar and
pitch.200 The realgar ovoid in the Shosoin must to bring sylphdom and to make gold are collected
have been intended for purposes like these. in Pao-p'u-tzu, notably in Books IV, XI and XVI.
The most important of these is one for "realgar
We have noted that in Han times the stones
water." de This is not itself an elixir, but is an
representing the five cardinal colors were used in
essential reagent used to prepare a number of
medicine. This quintuple array also became im-
different elixirs. It is made in this way:
portant in alchemy. Ko Hung's list, differing
from the one reproduced above in respect to the Prepare "male yellow" and put it inside of a tube of
fresh bamboo. For each catty taken, add two taels of
blue representative, is: Cinnabar cr (" cinnabar niter-stone, covering and spreading it on top and bot-
sand," for Red), Realgar ("male yellow," for tom. Seal this with pellets of lacquered bone, and
Yellow), Alums (" white alum," for White), insert it in heavy wine which has largely vinegarized.
Bury it three feet deep. In twenty days it will be
Azurite ct (" layered verditer," 201 for Blue), and
transformed into a liquid.204
Magnetite c ("sympathetic stone," for Black).202
All of these substances are used together to pre- The presence of niter in this formula is significant.
pare the Taoist elixir named "Cinnabar of the Elsewhere Ko Hung states that realgar can be
Nine Lights," cv which, like most cinnabar-elixirs,
liquified by the use of niter,205 from which we may
has the double function of etherializing the body judge that the now well-known fluxing property
and transforming base metals into gold. of saltpeter was common knowledge among the
In another place, Ko Hung gives a long list of chemists of fourth century China. Indeed, this
"sylph-drugs,"c w i. e. those natural substances chemical fact must be much older than that, since
the very word for niter df means "fluxing stone." dg
which, properly prepared, make drugs to trans-
form the initiate into a sylph-man, with a rarifiedKo Hung recommends the use of Wu-tu realgar
for these experiments, as the purest material avail-
body, the ability to fly, and a prolonged life. The
able. This view continued in force over many cen-
first nine of these materials are by far the most
turies, so that Su Sung wrote in the Sung dynasty
important, and of these eight are mineral sub-
of the realgar from the cliffs of Wu-tu that it was
stances. The others, which I do not reproduce light-bodied and very efficacious, and greatly
here, are in the main vegetables, relatively de- valued by the "Familiars of the Cinnabar Fur-
spised by the alchemists. Ko Hung lists the basic nace." 206
nine in order of their potency, as follows: There is some evidence that the Chinese alche-
mists knew how to make realgar artificially in
198 Ibid. 4. 5b. early times. Li Shih-chen cites a recipe, which he
19 Quoted in PTKM.
attributes to Fan Wang dh of the late third century.
200 PTKM, quoting traditional recipes.
201 This expression has sometimes been thought to This produces a " flying yellow powder," di which
refer to malachite, green verditer. Both azurite and is realgar itself.207 It is very likely that this end-
malachite are carbonates of copper, and occur together
in nature as ores of that metal. I hope in another essay 203 Ibid. 2. 22b.
to make clear the reasons, too long to explain here, why 204 Ibid. 3. 33a.
" layered verditer " and "hollow verditer " stand for 205 Ibid. 2.28b.
the blue carbonate rather than the green. 206 Quoted in PTKM.
202 Pao-p'u-tzu 1. 21b. 2" PTKM.

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86 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

product actually appeared, since native realgar This leads to the question of the meaning of
was one of the original ingredients, and the arsenic arsenic detected in rather considerable quantities
and sulphur might readily recombine in the subli-(around 4%) in some copper objects of the Shang
mation process. dynasty. The Japanese scholar Mitsukuni Yo-
The belief that realgar could transform coppershida dm has suggested in a recent article that the
into gold held sway over a long period. The sixtharsenic in these bronzes may well have been added
century Ming-i pieh-lu asserts this as a fact,208purposely by the Shang craftsmen, in the same
many texts in the Taoist canon echo the belief,209manner as tin, to harden the copper, and to im-
and Li Shih-chen wrote in the sixteenth century prove its casting qualities. Yoshida believes that
that realgar got its name " male yellow " from the its arsenic may have been in part derived from the
ability to produce the yellow metal.210 But innative sulphides, orpiment and realgar.215 It must
addition to having this power to transform another be said that the evidence for this is rather slight.
substance, realgar itself could be changed into A similar suggestion was made many years ago to
gold, as is regularly implied by the gold-making account for the presence of arsenic in bronzes from
recipes in Pao-p'u-tzu. This idea is related to theEgypt and Cyprus.216 But metallurgists are now
conception that there is a genetic relationship generally agreed that bronze-age technology was
between gold and realgar. So the Tan-fang chien- not sufficiently advanced to allow specific knowl-
yuan di 211 states that realgar is naturally trans-edge of the properties of arsenic, as distinct from
formed into gold after a thousand years, while similar-looking
an metals such as tin, zinc, antimony,
early (fifth century) technical compendium says and bismuth. Moreover these modern authorities
that orpiment is the ultimate gold-bearing sub- point out that the desirable qualities of arsenic are
stance, which becomes in turn realgar and finally easily overrated-added to copper it increases the
gold.212 Another view of the relationship between toughness of that metal only when present in
realgar and gold was that the former mineral was minute quantities, much less than the amounts
a kind of efflorescence or " sprout" dk of the yel-found in these ancient artifacts. In larger
low metal, as the verditers are of copper. Thisamounts, the alloy is very brittle. Finally, arsenic
belief was founded on the observation that realgar is commonly found in copper ores, and it should be
was often present in gold mines and smelters.213 viewed as an impurity in manufactured objects.217
This relationship was correctly rejected by K'ou Finally, there is no evidence that the Chinese of
Tsung-shih,dl a pharmacologist of the early twelfththat remote epoch knew anything about the rela-
century, on the grounds that gold had been found tion between arsenic and its yellow sulphides.
in many places without accompanying realgar.214The evidence from ancient Peru illustrates what
It is very likely that small amounts of gold wereprobably happened in ancient China. A hatchet
recovered from arsenic ores by the Chinese metal-found there was proved to contain more than 4%
lurgists, repeating the experience of Caligula. of arsenic. But the copper deposits in this area
This would tend to confirm the conclusions based contain copper sulphides mingled with arsenic sul-
on observing the two minerals together in mines, phides, and it seems certain that the bronze pro-
and strengthen the hopes of the experimental duced was the unplanned result of primitive
chemists. Also, copper-arsenic alloys may have refining methods using this mixture as an ore.218
been regarded as a special form of gold, in much
the same way as the alloys and tinctured metals215 " Notes on the Technology of the Yin Dynasty," go
of the Alexandrian Greeks. in Tohogakuh6 gp No. 23 (Kyoto, 1953), 167-171. The
author also notes the presence of arsenic-bronze at
208 In PTKM. Mohenjo-daro.
216 See Wilhelm Witter, " Die technische Verwendung
209 For instance, the Tan-fang chien-yiian, in Tao
von Kupfer-Arsenlegierungen im Altertum," Metall und
Tsang, Tung-shen Section, "Assembled Arts," Ju.
210 PTKM.
Erz 33.5 (1936), 118-120 for a history of the contro-
211 In Tao Tsang, loc. cit. versy.
217 W. Witter, op. cit. 118; R. J. Forbes, op. cit. 266,
212 Wang Chien-p'ing,gm Tien shu,gn cited in T'ai-p'ing
268, 350; private communication from Professor S. F.
yii-lan 988. 3a.
213 So avers Chen Ch'iian (seventh century), cited inRavitz, Division of Mineral Technology, University of
California, Berkeley, dated 28 February 1955.
PTKM.
218 W. Witter, loc. cit.
,14 Quoted in PTKM.

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 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition

It is likely that the ancient Chinese exploited a H. T. Chang has pointed out that courtiers of the
similar deposit for some of their castings. The Ming dynasty sometimes carried small cakes of
case would be strengthened by the discovery of realgar, called "hand warmers," dn which were
such bronze-age workings in North China, but they supposed to heat the whole body.224 In Ch'ing
may well have been exhausted in early times.219 times, cups and other vessels, as well as human
From the eleventh century, at least, realgar has figures, have been carved from pieces of realgar by
been a frequent ingredient in artifacts of Chinese the artisans of Kuei-yang-fu.do 225 Realgar jewelry,
chemical warfare. A recipe of A. D. 1044 for cata- especially carved beads, linked with quartz, agate
pulted incendiary bombs prescribes sulphur, niter, and jade, have been observed in modern China,
realgar, massicot, laquer, pitch, and a number of while carved netsulce were until lately popular in
minor components.220 Some formulae of the seven- Japan as talismans against fevers and maladies of
teenth century are also known, which assign to the blood.226 I have not discovered any ancient or
realgar an important place in various explosive medieval reference to such carvings, but their an-
powders, especially those calculated to have a cestors may be the anti-demoniac eggs and similar
poisonous effect.22' Realgar has also been fre- objects of earlier ages. Particularly interesting
quently used in non-military pyrotechnics, espe- are the polished medicine cups made of realgar, at
cially for producing dense yellow smoke, or more least as old as the seventeenth century. Enough
commonly in the brilliantly white Bengal Lights, arsenic dissolved in the potion from the inner
"electric stars," and "silver showers." 222 The face of the cup to constitute a medicinal dose.227
mineral is still used for these latter fireworks.223
These remind us strongly of the pocula emetica
Finally, realgar, being a soft compact substance,
made of antimony in the West, which worked in
lends itself readily to carving into small exactly objects.the same way.228 Perhaps a historical con-
nection between these vessels may be demonstrated
219 Enargite, a double sulphide of copper and arsenic
some day.
is worked in some places, as Butte, Montana, as an ore
of copper, though it is not clear whether primitive
technology could have coped with this mineral. W. 224 H. T. Chang, op. cit. 213.
Witter observes that arsenic-bronze produced from a 225 Kuei-chou t'ung-chih 15. 3a.
226 A. J. C. Geerts, op. cit. 177-8. Cf. F. de M4ly,
mixed ore lends itself well to cold hammering, but this
was no doubt regarded as an idiosyncrasy of the par-op. cit. 202.
ticular ore. 227 See Daniel Hanbury, Science Papers, chiefly Phar-
220Tenney L. Davis and James R. Ware, "Early macological and Botanical; edited, with memoir, by
Chinese Military Pyrotechnics," Journal of ChemicalJoseph Ince (London, 1876), 221, for a description and
Education 24. 11 (November, 1947), 523-4. illustration of one of these cups. Marcello Muccioli, in
221 Ibid. 525-6. his brief study of arsenic minerals in the Chinese
222 Tenney L. Davis and Chao Yiin-ts'ung, Chao Hsiieh-materia medica, based on the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu (" L'ar-
min's Outline of Pyrotechnics; a Contribution to the senico presso i Cinesi," Archivio di storia della scienza
History of Fireworks," Proceedings of the American 8 [1927], 65-76), doubts the existence of such cups, for
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 75 (1943), 95-107; Ten- which he was criticized by Laufer in Isis 10 (1928), 238.
ney L. Davis, The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives 228 A study of these emetic wine-cups is unfortunately
1 (New York and London, 1941), 52, 64, 77, 83. not available to me: it is St. Clair Thompson, "Anti-
223 Ernest Watson, op. cit. 509. Watson also mentions monyall Cupps: Pocula Emetica or Calices Vomitorii,"
realgar as a gold solder, but I have been unable to find Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 19 (Sect.
Chinese references. Hist. Med., 1926), 123-8.

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88 SCHAFER: Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition
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