Egyptian Blue Pigment - a lost treasure of history …

Egyptian Blue is a pigment that was used in ancient Egypt for thousands of years. It is considered to be the first synthetic pigment. The first recorded use of "Egyptian blue" as a color name in English was in 1809 CE.

 Is a pigment. Ancient Egyptians held the color blue in very high regard and were eager to present it in many media and in a variety of forms. They also desired to imitate the semi-precious stones turquoise and lapis lazuli, which were valued for their rarity and stark blue color. Using naturally occurring minerals such as azurite to acquire this blue was impractical, as these minerals were rare and difficult to work. Therefore, to have access to large quantities of blue color to meet demand, Egyptians needed to manufacture pigment themselves.

The earliest evidence for the use of Egyptian blue, identified by Egyptologist Lorelei H. Corcoran of The University of Memphis, is on an alabaster bowl dated to the the late pre-dynastic period or Naqada III (3250 BC), excavated at Hierakonpolis and now in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In Middle Kingdom (2050–1652 BC) it continued to be used as a pigment in the decoration of tombs, wall paintings, furnishings, and statues, the  and by New Kingdom (1570–1070 BC) began to be more widely used in production of numerous objects. . Its use continued throughout the Late period and Greco-Roman period, only dying out in the 4th Century AD, when the secret to its manufacture was lost.

No written information exists in ancient Egyptian texts about the manufacture of Egyptian blue in antiquity and it was first mentioned only in Roman literature by Vitruvius during the 1st Century BC. He refers to it as caeruleum and describes in his work De Architectura how it was produced by grinding sand, copper, and natron and heating the mixture, shaped into small balls, in a furnace. Lime is necessary for the production as well, but probably lime-rich sand was used.

In excavations at Amarna, Lisht, and Malkata at the beginning of the 20th Century, Petrie uncovered two types of vessels that he suggested were used in antiquity to make Egyptian blue: bowl-shaped pans and cylindrical vessels or saggers. In recent excavations at Amarna by Barry Kemp (1989), very small numbers of these "fritting" pans were uncovered, although various remaining pieces of Egyptian blue 'cake' were found, which allowed identification of five different categories of Egyptian blue forms and vessels. associated with them: large round flat cakes, large flat rectangular cakes, bowl-shaped cakes, small sack-shaped pieces, and spherical shapes.

In the 1930s, archaeologists excavated a number of objects related to the production of Egyptian blue at Qantir, such as Egyptian blue cakes and fragments in various stages of production, providing evidence that Egyptian blue was actually produced at the site. These Egyptian blue 'cakes' were possibly later exported to other areas around the country to be worked, as scarcity of finished Egyptian blue products existed on site. Egyptian blue cakes were found at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, a Ramesside fort near the Libyan coast, indicating in fact that cakes were traded, and worked at and reshaped away from their primary production site.

Egyptian blue was found in Western Asia during the middle of the 3rd Millennium BC in the form of small artifacts and inlays, but not as a pigment. It was found in the Mediterranean area at the end of the Middle Bronze Age and traces of tin were found in its composition suggesting the use of bronze scrap instead of copper ore as the source of copper. During the Roman period, the use of Egyptian blue was extensive, as a pot containing the unused pigment, found in 1814 in Pompeii, illustrates. It was also found as unused pigment in the tombs of a number of painters. Etruscans also used it in their wall paintings. Chinese blue has been suggested as having Egyptian roots. Later, Raphael used Egyptian blue in his Triumph of Galatea.

👉 By - Prasanna Wijayasinghe..