Alembic

This article is about alchemical stills. For the guitar manufacturer, see Alembic Inc. For computer graphics, see Alembic (Computer Graphics).
Alembic of Zosimos of Panopolis

An alembic (Arabic الأنبيق (al-anbīḳ) from Greek ἄμβιξ (ambix), "cup, beaker")[1][2][3] is an alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, used for distilling chemicals. The alembic Unicode symbols are U+1F76A ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR ALEMBIC (🝪) and U+2697 ALEMBIC (⚗).

Description

Picture of an alembic from a medieval manuscript

The complete distilling apparatus consists of three parts: the "cucurbit" (Arabic ḳarʿa, Greek βίκος), the "head" or "cap" (Arabic anbiḳ, Greek ἄμβιξ), with an attached "tube" (Greek σωλήν), and the "receiver" (Arabic ḳābila, Greek ἄγγος or φιάλη). Modern retorts have the "cap" and the "cucurbit" made into one. The anbik is also called the raʾs (head) of the cucurbit. The liquid in the cucurbit is heated or boiled; the vapour rises into the anbik, where it cools by contact with the walls and condenses, running down the spout into a receiver. A modern descendant of the alembic is the pot still, used to produce distilled beverages.

History

Alembics from a 1606 alchemy book

Dioscorides' ambix (De materia medica) is a helmet-shaped lid for gathering condensed mercury, for Athenaeus (~ 225 C.E.) it is a bottle or flask, with later chemists it denotes various parts of crude distillation devices. According to Zosimos of Panopolis, the alembic was invented by Mary the Jewess.[4]

Alembic drawings appear in works of Cleopatra the Alchemist, Synesius, and Zosimos of Panopolis. There were alembics with two (dibikos) and three (tribikos) receivers.[5]

The anbik is described by Ibn al-Awwam in his "Kitab al-Filaha" ("Book of Agriculture"), where he explains how rose-water is distilled. Amongst others, it is mentioned in the "Mafatih al-Ulum" ("Key of Sciences") of Khwarizmi and the "Kitab al-Asrar" ("Book of Secrets") of Al-Razi. Some illustrations occur in the Latin translations of works which are attributed to Geber.[2]

Gallery

Alembic metalwork in the staircase at the Chemical Faculty of Gdańsk University of Technology, 1904

See also

References

  1. ↑ M. Ullmann (1986), "AL-KĪMIYĀ", The Encyclopaedia of Islam 5 (2nd ed.), Brill, p. 111b, ISBN 90-04-07819-3
  2. 1 2 E. Wiedemann; M. Plessner (1986), "AL-ANBĪḲ", The Encyclopaedia of Islam 1 (2nd ed.), Brill, p. 486a, ISBN 90-04-08114-3
  3. ↑ Henry Liddell; Robert Scott, eds. (1897), "ἄμβιξ", A Greek–English Lexicon (8th ed.), Harper & Brothers, p. 73
  4. ↑ Edmund Lippmann (1919), Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie, Springer, pp. 48–49
  5. ↑ Marcellin Berthelot (1889), Introduction à l'étude de la chimie des anciens et du moyen âge, Steinheil, pp. 132, 135–142, 161–164
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