Chemical analyses find hidden elements from renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe's alchemy laboratory

In the Middle Ages, alchemists were notoriously secretive and didn't share their knowledge with others. Danish Tycho Brahe was no exception. Consequently, we don't know precisely what he did in the alchemical laboratory located beneath his combined residence and observatory, Uraniborg, on the now Swedish island of Ven.

Only a few of his alchemical recipes have survived, and today, there are very few remnants of his laboratory. Uraniborg was demolished after his death in 1601, and the building materials were scattered for reuse.

However, during an excavation in 1988-1990, some pottery and glass shards were found in Uraniborg's old garden. These shards were believed to originate from the basement's alchemical laboratory. Five of these shards -- four glass and one ceramic -- have now undergone chemical analyses to determine which elements the original glass and ceramic containers came into contact with.

The chemical analyses were conducted by Professor Emeritus and expert in archaeometry, Kaare Lund Rasmussen from the Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark. Senior researcher and museum curator Poul Grinder-Hansen from the National Museum of Denmark oversaw the insertion of the analyses into historical context.

Enriched levels of trace elements were found on four of them, while one glass shard showed no specific enrichments. The study has been published in the journal Heritage Science.

"Most intriguing are the elements found in higher concentrations than expected -- indicating enrichment and providing insight into the substances used in Tycho Brahe's alchemical laboratory," said Kaare Lund Rasmussen.

The enriched elements are nickel, copper, zinc, tin, antimony, tungsten, gold, mercury, and lead, and they have been found on either the inside or outside of the shards.

Most of them are not surprising for an alchemist's laboratory. Gold and mercury were -- at least among the upper echelons of society -- commonly known and used against a wide range of diseases.

"But tungsten is very mysterious. Tungsten had not even been described at that time, so what should we infer from its presence on a shard from Tycho Brahe's alchemy workshop?," said Kaare Lund Rasmussen.

Tungsten was first described and produced in pure form more than 180 years later by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Tungsten occurs naturally in certain minerals, and perhaps the element found its way to Tycho Brahe's laboratory through one of these minerals. In the laboratory, the mineral might have undergone some processing that separated the tungsten, without Tycho Brahe ever realizing it.

However, there is also another possibility that Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen emphasizes has no evidence whatsoever -- but which could be plausible.

Already in the first half of the 1500s, the German mineralogist Georgius Agricola described something strange in tin ore from Saxony, which caused problems when he tried to smelt tin. Agricola called this strange substance in the tin ore "Wolfram" (German for Wolf's froth, later renamed to tungsten in English).

"Maybe Tycho Brahe had heard about this and thus knew of tungsten's existence. But this is not something we know or can say based on the analyses I have done. It is merely a possible theoretical explanation for why we find tungsten in the samples," said Kaare Lund Rasmussen.

Tycho Brahe belonged to the branch of alchemists who, inspired by the German physician Paracelsus, tried to develop medicine for various diseases of the time: plague, syphilis, leprosy, fever, stomach aches, etc. But he distanced himself from the branch that tried to create gold from less valuable minerals and metals.

In line with the other medical alchemists of the time, he kept his recipes close to his chest and shared them only with a few selected individuals, such as his patron, Emperor Rudolph II, who allegedly received Tycho Brahe's prescriptions for plague medicine.

We know that Tycho Brahe's plague medicine was complicated to produce. It contained theriac, which was one of the standard remedies for almost everything at the time and could have up to 60 ingredients, including snake flesh and opium. It also contained copper or iron vitriol (sulphates), various oils, and herbs.

After various filtrations and distillations, the first of Brahe's three recipes against plague was obtained. This could be made even more potent by adding tinctures of, for example, coral, sapphires, hyacinths, or potable gold.

"It may seem strange that Tycho Brahe was involved in both astronomy and alchemy, but when one understands his worldview, it makes sense. He believed that there were obvious connections between the heavenly bodies, earthly substances, and the body's organs. Thus, the Sun, gold, and the heart were connected, and the same applied to the Moon, silver, and the brain; Jupiter, tin, and the liver; Venus, copper, and the kidneys; Saturn, lead, and the spleen; Mars, iron, and the gallbladder; and Mercury, mercury, and the lungs. Minerals and gemstones could also be linked to this system, so emeralds, for example, belonged to Mercury," explained Poul Grinder-Hansen.

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Copper artifacts unearth new cultural connections in southern Africa

Chemical and isotopic analysis of copper artifacts from southern Africa reveals new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries according to a University of Missouri researcher and colleagues.

People in the area between northern South Africa and the Copperbelt region in central Africa were more connected to one another than scholars previously thought, said Jay Stephens, a post-doctoral fellow in the MU Research Reactor (MURR) Archaeometry Lab.

"Over the past 20 to 30 years, most archaeologists have framed the archaeological record of southern Africa in a global way with a major focus on its connection to imports coming from the Indian Ocean," he said. "But it's also important to recognize the interconnected relationships that existed among the many groups of people living in southern Africa. The data shows the interaction between these groups not only involved the movement of goods, but also flows of information and the sharing of technological practices that come with that exchange."

Mining copper ore

For years, scholars debated whether these artifacts, called rectangular, fishtail and croisette copper ingots, were made exclusively from copper ore mined in the Copperbelt region or from Zimbabwe's Magondi Belt. As it turns out, both theories are correct, Stephens said.

"We now have tangible linkages to reconstruct connectivity at various points in time in the archeological record," he said. "There is a massive history of interconnectivity found throughout the region in areas now known as the countries of Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This also includes people from the contemporary Ingombe Ilede, Harare, and Musengezi traditions of northern Zimbabwe between at least the 14th and 18th centuries A.D."

To determine their findings, researchers took small samples from 33 copper ingots and analyzed them at the University of Arizona. All samples were carefully selected by researchers from archeological samples found in the collections of the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Livingstone Museum in Livingstone, Zambia.

"We didn't want to impact the display of an object, so we tried to be aware of how museums and institutions would want to interact with the data we collected and share it with the general public," Stephens said. "We also want our knowledge to be accessible for the individuals in these communities who continue to interact with these objects. Hopefully, some of the skills linked with these analyses can be used by whomever wants to ask similar questions in the future."

Stephens said copper ingots are excellent objects for this type of analysis because they often have emblematic shapes that allow archaeologists to identify specific markings and follow changes over different time periods.

"By looking at their changes in shape and morphology over time, we can pair those changes with how technology changed over time," he said. "This often comes from observing the decorative features produced from the cast object or mold, or other surface attributes found on these objects."

Gathering scientific evidence

Once the samples arrived at the University of Arizona lab, researchers took a small amount of each sample -- less than one gram -- and dissolved it with specific acids to leave behind a liquid mixture of chemical ions. Then the samples were analyzed for lead isotopes and other chemical elements. One challenge the team encountered was a lack of existing data to match their samples with.

"One part of the project included analyzing hundreds of ore samples from different geological deposits in southern Africa -- especially ones mined before the arrival of European colonial forces -- to create a robust data set," Stephens said. "The data can provide a scientific foundation to help back up the inferences and conclusions we make in the study."

Historical connections

Stephens said the data they collect is one of the only remaining tangible links that exist today to those precolonial mines in Africa.

"Unfortunately, large open pit mines have destroyed a lot of the archaeological sites and broader cultural landscapes around these geological deposits," he said. "This makes it a challenge to reconstruct the history related to these mines. It's a concerning development, especially with the global push toward more electric vehicles which use minerals like copper and cobalt found in the Copperbelt."

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