Re:Ancient Egyptian coffins and mystery of ‘black goo’
by Chris2048 on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:37AM
(#23302120)
Apparently, cellulose nitrate is also known as Nitrocellulose, and it's pretty explosive stuff; wrt replacing ivory billiards balls:
"The invention enjoyed a brief popularity, but the Hyatt balls were extremely flammable, and sometimes portions of the outer shell would explode upon impact. An owner of a billiard saloon in Colorado wrote to Hyatt about the explosive tendencies, saying that he did not mind very much personally but for the fact that every man in his saloon immediately pulled a gun at the sound."
Depending on the exact chemical reaction makeup these could very well be considered plastics.
Plastics date back around 3500 years with the earliest plastics being made form egg proteins and other animal sources, Shellac which can and is formed into plastic materials has been used for at least 3000 years and in Middle Ages Europe plastics were made by treating horns and making translucent and transparent plastics form them:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/queenslib.wordpress.com/2017/...
One of the first modern plastics was cellulose nitrate which was used as an ivory replacement and was made by dissolving cotton in nitric acid and mixing it with vegetable oil, the solution can then be poured into molds to create the final shape or made into billets that could be machined or carved.