element

Asphalt

Elements

Natural or worked bituminous pitch of roads and seals. Not bitumen as the broader sticky class alone, and not Stockholm tar as wood-tar.

  • Asphalt is used in Medicine.

    Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica lists asphalt / bitumen (ἄσφαλτος) among mineral drugs used in plasters and fumigations. A named asphalt in that handbook, not bitumen as a separate broader sticky lemma already seated in Pliny pharmacy and not a modern road-tar dump.

    from Pedanius Dioscorides · De Materia Medica, 1st century CE

    used in · sourced · documented

sources