Where Does Ink Come From? A Short History of Ink, From Soot to Inkjet
Last Updated:Last updated: November 9, 2026.
Quick answer: the first inks were made from soot (carbon) mixed with glue and water. They appeared independently in ancient Egypt and China roughly 4,500 to 5,000 years ago, so no single person invented ink. Carbon ink was followed by iron gall ink in medieval Europe, oil-based printing ink in the 1400s, and in the 20th century by the dye and pigment inks and toner used in today's printers.
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Timeline: ink through history
| When | Where | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| c. 3000–2500 BCE | Egypt and China | Carbon ink from lamp soot bound with gum or animal glue |
| Ancient China | China | Ink pressed into dry sticks, ground with water on an inkstone when needed |
| Roughly 5th–8th century CE onward | Europe and the Middle East | Iron gall ink, made from oak galls and iron salts |
| 12th–19th century | Europe | Iron gall becomes the standard writing ink for manuscripts and documents |
| Mid-1400s | Germany | Gutenberg's press uses thick, oil-based ink that sticks to metal type |
| 1600s | Europe | Chinese ink sticks reach Europe as "China ink", later called "India ink" |
| 1800s | Europe and US | Synthetic dyes; mass-produced bottled ink for steel-nib pens |
| 1938–1940s | Hungary and Argentina | Ballpoint pens with thick, quick-drying paste ink |
| 1970s | US and Japan | Early inkjet printing; IBM's 6640 in 1976; Canon's bubble-jet research |
| 1984 | US | HP ThinkJet, the first mass-market thermal inkjet printer |
The first ink: soot and glue
The oldest inks used the simplest black pigment there is: carbon soot, scraped from oil lamps or burned wood. Soot on its own rubs off, so it was mixed with a binder such as gum arabic or animal-skin glue. Egyptian scribes wrote on papyrus with carbon ink and reed pens. In China, the same mixture was pressed into hard ink sticks that were ground with a little water on a stone, a method calligraphers still use.
Carbon ink lasts extremely well. Carbon doesn't fade in light or react with air, which is why writing on papyri thousands of years old is still black.
What is India ink, and why is it called that?
India ink is a dense black carbon ink, essentially the same soot-and-binder recipe in liquid form. Modern versions often add shellac, which makes the dried ink waterproof. That's why artists still use it for line drawing, lettering and comics.
The name is a historical mix-up. The ink was made in China, and in the 1600s Europeans called it "China ink". Because it reached England through trade routes associated with India, English speakers came to call it "India ink". Many other languages still call it Chinese ink.
Iron gall ink: the ink of the Middle Ages
Iron gall ink was made by mixing tannin from oak galls (growths that wasps cause on oak trees) with iron sulfate and a gum binder. It went on pale and darkened to black as it oxidized on the page. Because it soaked into parchment instead of sitting on top, it was hard to erase, which made it ideal for legal documents. It was the main writing ink in Europe from about the 12th to the 19th century.
Its weakness is acid: over centuries, iron gall ink can eat through the paper it was written on, a problem conservators call ink corrosion.
Printing ink
Watery writing inks don't work on metal type: they bead up and smear. Printing with movable type needed a thick, sticky ink, so printers in 15th-century Europe used inks based on linseed oil and carbon black, closer to an oil paint than to a writing ink. Oil-based inks remained the basis of commercial printing for centuries.
From fountain pens to inkjet cartridges
Synthetic dyes arrived in the 19th century and made bright, cheap colored inks possible. The 20th century added ballpoint paste inks and then printer inks, which have to do something no earlier ink did: pass through nozzles thinner than a hair, thousands of times a second, without clogging.
Inkjet printing was developed in the 1970s, with IBM and Canon among the early companies working on it. In 1984 HP launched the ThinkJet, a $495 thermal inkjet printer whose small replaceable cartridge printed about 500 pages. Heating the ink to form a tiny vapor bubble that pushes a droplet out is still how most HP and Canon printers work today. How does an inkjet printer work? explains the mechanics.
Laser printers took a different path: toner is a dry powder rather than a liquid. Early toners were carbon and iron oxide; modern toner is mostly fine plastic (polymer) particles that melt onto the page. See what a toner cartridge is and how it differs from ink.
What's in printer ink today?
Modern printer ink is mostly water, plus a colorant (a dye or a pigment), and small amounts of humectants that keep nozzles from drying out, surfactants that control how ink spreads, and preservatives. Pigment black inks still use carbon black, the same material ancient scribes scraped off lamps. Our guide What is printer ink made of? goes through each ingredient.
Ink History FAQs
Who invented ink?
No one person. Carbon inks were developed independently in ancient Egypt and China around 2500–3000 BCE. Chinese tradition credits individual figures, but there's no reliable record of a single inventor.
Is India ink from India?
No. It was developed in China. The English name comes from the trade route that brought it to Europe.
What was ink made of in the Middle Ages?
Most European writing used iron gall ink, made from oak galls, iron sulfate, gum arabic and water. Carbon inks were still used too.
What was the first inkjet printer?
Several industrial and lab systems came first, including IBM's 6640 in 1976. HP's ThinkJet, released in 1984, was the first successful inkjet printer for ordinary office users.
Why is black ink usually carbon?
Carbon black is cheap, intensely black and does not fade. Those properties made it the first ink and keep it in pigment printer inks and toner today.
More reading: How does a laser printer work? · What is printer ink made of?
By William Elward, founder of Castle Ink (in business since 2005).
Sources
Checked on November 9, 2026.
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