Ancient Pigment "Egyptian Blue" Long Thought Extinct, Now Can Be Replicated
In the realm of history, it's easy to gaze upon ancient artifacts, such as dusty museum treasures or crumbling city ruins, and imagine them as relics of a bygone age. Yet, these wonders were once vibrant and alive - think of ancient Greek statues, adorned with gaudy paint, or Pompeii, teeming with life and other activities. Even the Pyramid at Giza shimmered in the sun, with murals, jewelry, and artwork boasting vivid hues, particularly in shades of blue.
One of the enigmatic components of these historic masterpieces is the make-up of the much-revered "Egyptian blue" - the world's earliest known synthetic pigment, dating back some 5,000 years. This pigment, much like an ancient Coca-Cola, has been just out of reach for centuries. Now, thanks to a joint project amongst researchers from Washington State University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, we're a step closer to unraveling this mystery.
In this new endeavor, the team identified 12 unique recipes, each ever so slightly distinct from the last, aimed at uncovering the secret to ancient hues. Their goal: to understand the chemical properties and the technological variables early artists would have needed to create such desired multicomponent synthetic pigments.
For eons, the ingredients of Egyptian blue have been known: a copper source, calcium carbonate, quartz sand, and an alkali. But the intricacies - the ratios, the careful blending, the painstaking refinement - have remained a tantalizing enigma.
However, this ancient hue is far from obsolete. It boasts some appealing modern applications, such as energy efficiency and versatility in fields as diverse as biomedical analysis, telecommunications, and security and crime detection. It even has a potential role in the quest for high-temperature superconductors.
Yet, the researchers were driven by something more than modern applications. John McCloy, the study's first author and director of Washington State University's School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, confessed in a statement that their efforts began simply as a fun, museum-display related task. Yet, the interest in the material soon grew.
To recreate a pigment nearly as old as recorded history, where should you start? Why, you begin much like an ancient artist would, by mixing the right ingredients, cooking them up, and seeing what emerges. In this case, the team concocted Egyptian blue pigments using various copper sources (CuO, azurite, or malachite), with or without the addition of a sodium carbonate flux. They then analyzed these pigments using modern technology, comparing their chemical composition, phase assemblage, and microstructure with ancient originals.
The results were surprising. Contrary to popular belief, Egyptian blue isn't that blue at all - or, rather, it doesn't require the entirety of the blue-colored components. The rest can be filled with whatever materials you have on hand. "We were quite surprised to find that it doesn't matter what the rest of it is," McCloy said. "Every single pigment particle has a bunch of stuff in it - it's not uniform by any means."
This research, published in the journal NPJ Heritage Science, highlights how modern science reveals hidden stories in ancient Egyptian objects. Through this effort, McCloy and his team hope to showcase the power of contemporary science to shed light on our human past.
- The blend of technology and research is essential in uncovering secrets of the past, such as the composition of the ancient synthetic pigment, Egyptian blue.
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