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Blue comes in a variety of forms. Princess blue, sky blue. Navy, baby blue, cyan blue, and royal blue What if we did tell you about Egyptian blue, however? Do you recognize that sound? Ancient Egyptian walls, sculptures, paintings, ceramics, and even coffins all had that rich cobalt hue. Throughout history, no pigment has been so distinctive that it has ever been replicated.
Egyptian blue
The Romans, who overran Ancient Egypt in the first century BC, used the oldest sample, which is from 3250 BC. However, that unique, distinctive shade of blue could never be created again until recently because the original recipe was lost to time.
The forgotten recipe for Egyptian blue pigment has now been recreated by a global collaboration of materials scientists and archaeologists!
From pharaonic dynasties to modern laboratories
Recovering a pigment might not appear difficult at first, and any art historian could do it. However, Egyptian blue isn’t your typical blue. The crystalline form of this pigment, called cuprorivaite, allows it to absorb red light and release infrared radiation—a luminescence phenomena that is fascinating to modern scientists. Another indication that the Egyptians were, in fact, aliens.
Using silica, sodium carbonate, lime, and copper that had been heated to more than 1,000 C for eleven hours, researchers from Washington State University, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute were able to reproduce up to twelve different iterations of the lost recipe.
According to John McCloy, the director of Washington State’s School of Mechanical Engineering and the principal author of the finding, even little variations in the procedure resulted in radically different tones. The final hue was entirely altered by the cooking time as well as the constituent amounts.
And they weren’t using ovens or scales!
The rebirth of a material
One characteristic was shared by all twelve tests: the cuprorivaite glows, emits infrared light, and activates with red light. Whoa! What is the purpose of that? Even if Egyptian blue is obscured by additional paint layers, it may be easily recognized.
This makes it far simpler for historians and archaeologists to determine whether a picture was altered to use a new blue, even if it is almost perceptible.
The fact that a 5,000-year-old innovation is now resurfacing as cutting-edge technology is astounding.
Even the Renaissance painter Raphael used and replicated Egyptian blue in The Triumph of Galatea, which he painted for the Villa Farnesina about 1512. To make the eyes appear more translucent and natural, the ancient Romans combined Egyptian blue with white pigment.
Beyond aesthetics
Some specialists have suggested employing this pigment in novel applications, such as fingerprint detection or anti-counterfeit ink, because it produces light that is undetectable to the human eye. It’s both science and art!
From Pompeii’s mosaics to Saqqara’s sarcophagi, Egyptian blue served as a unifying element throughout civilizations. Then it vanished. However, the findings of this study have revealed that this hue has a second chapter, and it is once more amazing from a scientific and artistic standpoint.
Is a procedure this advanced, in a society that does not have access to modern technology, just additional fodder for conspiracy theories concerning the Egyptian Empire?Perhaps.
For ages, this hue of blue has been a part of Egyptian culture and religion, as well as daily life for people who lived in that era. It appears that we have gone back in time to get that priceless forgotten recipe—the same blue Cleopatra adored—that was used by the earliest pharaohs! We can now also experience it. Whoa, don’t you think science is amazing?
