About Magazine Podcasts Events
Museum Hours:Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm

Distillations magazine
Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past
Arts & Culture Early Science & Alchemy Environment & Nature 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
About SUPPORT OUR WORK

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.

More from our magazine

A black and white photograph of a man pointing at the open nose cone of a test rocket in a room with chalkboards on the walls
DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Ed Pendray and the Science of Tomorrow

A PR man’s pitch for science.

Color photo of a lab-like facility with technicians in lab coats and hairnets standing in front of rows of horseshoe crabs immobilized between wedges of Plexiglas
DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Something Old, Something New

Humans owe a huge medical debt to horseshoe crabs. Now there’s an opportunity to pay it back.

Engraving of a friar working a lab bench while flames and smoke erupt from a pot
DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Holy Smoke

The monks, nuns, and friars at the forefront of alchemy in early modern Europe.

    Republish

    Copy the above HTML to republish this content. We have formatted the material to follow our guidelines, which include our credit requirements. Please review our full list of guidelines for more information. By republishing this content, you agree to our republication requirements.