“The Lute of Wisdom”

Abstract

This article is the first interdisciplinary study of excavated early modern lute, a paste that alchemists wrapped around vessels, contextualising its relevance for the history of science. We explore the material epistemology of the alchemical laboratory by opening a conversation between archaeological sciences and the history of the body, medicine, and science. In an age that valued embodied epistemologies, we argue, medicine mattered for cultures of making and affected alchemists’ material practices. This article combines the scientific analysis of luted glass remains from the sixteenth century Oberstockstall alchemical laboratory in Kirchberg am Wagram, Lower Austria, with the in-depth study of recipe collections, alchemical, botanical, medical, and metallurgical treatises, and visual sources. Based on this methodology, we argue that the alchemist’s material practices were strongly linked to early modern Paracelsian thought and medical understandings of the body. In methodological terms, this article shifts boundaries between historians, archaeologists, and materials scientists.