The most versatile material known to man?

To celebrate the first day of April and the start of spring I thought I would talk about the most amazing material which I have heard about.

In the 19^th century the fashion of the Grand Tours to the continent exposed people to the antiquity of Rome and the continent, with this people brought back many ideas.

One particular idea which was brought back and developed by an industrialist was the re-creation of a material known as Narthex. There are only a few reports on the origins of this name, in the Mithraeum Temples of the Roman Empire, the reception space before the main space in the Temple was known as the Narthex, and it is said that this material was first recognised in one of these areas.

The ingredients of this strange material are still not fully known, it was reportedly sold in the form of a black, thick, syrupy material, in the 18^th Century a company known as Minter’s of Leeds advertised Narthex for many applications, from killing slugs, using for glue, greasing machinery and using it in medicine and dentistry, apparently it was also used to set teeth back into place.

The great writers of the 19^th Century also noted the excessive use of this product within the literary circles with some references to Narthex being added to drinks of the day such as Louderman which made the drink more potent and gave it hallucinogenic effects.

As the 19^th Century progressed the fate of Narthex was sealed by its excessive consumption by the aristocracy of the time and the resulting fatalities meant that Minters of Leeds had to remove it from general sale due to legal claims which were brought against them. It would appear that they tried to diversify the material and use it in the building industry as a plasticiser to mortars and plasters, however it never lost its legacy and foremen banned its use from building sites encase the workers were tempted to consume it.

I have not been able to find out what happened to Minters of Leeds, although with the decline of the products it can only be assumed that they went out of business or were bought by another firm. The big question in my own mind is what happened to the recipe for Narthex?

Many thanks for reading.

James