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Distillations magazine
Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past
Arts & Culture Early Science & Alchemy Environment Health & Medicine Inventions & Discoveries People & Politics
July 23, 2015 Early Science & Alchemy

Making and Knowing (Fake) Coral

Watch historians re-create a recipe for imitation coral, a popular material in early modern jewelry and home décor.

gloved hand mixing ingredients for an experiment
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In a cramped lab, historians from Columbia University and the Chemical Heritage Foundation (now the Science History Institute) are reconstructing a 16th-century workshop by re-creating recipes from an anonymous craftsperson’s manuscript. One of the recipes being pursued is for imitation coral, a popular material in early modern jewelry and home décor.

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