Maria the Jewess Biography

Maria the Jewess is credited with establishing the theoretical and practical foundations of alchemy, the forerunner of modern chemistry in the western world. She was one of the first chemists to combine the theories of alchemical science with the practical chemistry of the craft traditions. Although her theoretical contributions remained influential into the middle ages and beyond, Maria was more famous for her designs of laboratory apparatus.

Although nothing is known of her life, there are many references to Maria in ancient texts and she is believed to have lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the first century. Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., under the ruler Ptolemy, Alexandria became the center of Greek science, featuring an institute of higher learning called the Museum, the Great Library, a zoo, botanical gardens and an observatory. However by the first century, the Greco- Roman world had entered an intellectual decline. Alchemy was the one science which continued to develop, at a time when most scientists believed there was nothing new to discover and that all important knowledge could be found in the works of the ancient Greeks.

The Egyptian goddess Isis was said to be the founder of alchemy; but the science probably originated with the women who used the chemical processes of distillation, extraction, and sublimation to formulate perfumes and cosmetics in ancient Mesopotamia. Likewise, Babylonian women chemists used recipes and equipment derived from the kitchen. Thus, ancient alchemy was identified with women, and the work of the early alchemists occasionally was referred to as opus mulierum, or "women's work." Artists working with dyes and theories of color were also important sources for the practical aspects of Egyptian alchemy; but alchemical theory was steeped in the Gnostic tradition, centered in Alexandria. Gnosticism was a mixture of Jewish, Chaldean, and Egyptian mysticism, neo-platonism and Christianity. In alchemy, as in Gnosticism, the male and female elements were considered to be of equal importance.

Alchemy was a secretive science--perhaps to protect its practitioners from persecution; however, both the mystical cults and the crafts also had traditions of secrecy. In any case, it was common for alchemists to write under the name of a deity or famous person. Thus, Maria wrote under the name of Miriam the Prophetess, sister of Moses. In addition, she is referred to in alchemical literature as Maria the Jewess, Mary, Maria Prophetissa, and Maria the Sage, as well as Miriam. Maria's many alchemical treatises have been expanded, corrupted, and confused with other writings over the ages. However, fragments of her work, including one called the Maria Practica, are extant in ancient alchemical collections. She was quoted often by other early alchemists, particularly the Egyptian encyclopediast Zosimus (c. 300). Maria the Jewess also may have been the author of "The Letter of the Crown and the Nature of the Creation by Mary the Copt of Egypt" which was found in a volume of Arabic alchemical manuscripts, translated from Greek. This work summarized the major theories of Alexandrian alchemy and described the manufacture of colored glass, as well as other chemical processes.

Although the ultimate goal of the alchemist was to transmute common metals into silver and gold, the ancient alchemists were scientists who were examining the nature of life and of chemical processes. Although their science was based in Aristotelian theory, they were the first true experimenters. Maria believed that metals were living males and females and that the products of her laboratory experiments were the result of sexual generation. The early alchemists believed that the base metals were evolving toward the perfect metal--gold--and they clearly distinguished between gilding or forming alloys of base metals to simulate gold and silver, and true transmutation. By transferring the "spirit" or vapor of gold to a base metal, as measured by the transfer of color, alchemists saw themselves as encouraging a natural process.

Maria invented, and improved on, techniques and tools that remain basic to laboratory science today and her writings described her designs for laboratory apparatus in great detail. Her water bath, the balneum mariae or "Maria's bath," was similar to a double-boiler and was used to maintain a constant temperature, or to slowly heat a substance. Two thousand years later, the water bath remains an essential component of the laboratory. In modern French, the double-boiler is called a bain-marie.

Distillation was essential to experimental alchemy and Maria invented a still or alembic and a three-armed still called the tribikos. The liquid to be distilled was heated in an earthenware vessel on a furnace. The vapor condensed in the ambix, which was cooled with sponges, and a rim on the inside of the ambix collected the distillate and carried it to three copper delivery spouts fitted with receiving vessels. Maria described how to make the copper tubing from sheet metal that was the thickness of a pastry pan. Flour paste was used to seal the joints.

Maria studied the effects of arsenic, mercury, and sulfur vapors on metals, softening the metals and impregnating them with colors. For these experiments she invented the kerotakis process, her most important contribution to alchemical science. Her apparatus also came to be known as the kerotakis, a cylinder or sphere with a hemispherical cover, set on a fire. Suspended from the cover at the top of the cylinder was a triangular palette, used by artists to heat their mixtures of pigment and wax, and containing a copper-lead alloy or some other metal. Solutions of sulfur, mercury, or arsenic sulfide were heated in a pan near the bottom of the cylinder. The sulfur or mercury vapors condensed in the cover and the liquid condensate flowed back down, attacking the metal to yield a black sulfide called "Mary's Black ." This was believed to be the first step of transmutation. A sieve separated impurities from the black sulfide and continuous refluxing produced a gold-like alloy. Plant oils such as attar of roses also were extracted using the kerotakis.

Maria has been credited with inventing or improving upon the hot-ash bath and the dung- bed as laboratory heat sources and perfecting processes for producing phosphorescent gems. Maria's theoretical work included the concept of the macrocosm, or universe, and the microcosm, or individual body, and she applied this concept to the processes of distillation and reflux.

By the third century, the alchemists of Alexandria were being persecuted and their texts were destroyed. Much of this work was rescued by the Arabs, who venerated Maria and adopted her alchemical theories. However, when alchemy was rediscovered in medieval Europe, it was primarily in the form of charlatanism. Laboratory chemistry advanced very little from the time of Maria to the mid-seventeenth century.