Thousands of years before Yves Klein, Joni Mitchell, Pablo Picasso, or Miles Davis, Blue was famous the obsession of the ancient Egyptians, who used different shades of the color to decorate the graves of pharaohs, murals, images and countless objets. The earliest known artificial pigment, so -called “Egyptian blue” was created by Malachite, Kwartszand and other materials at 1500 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a process that was later adopted by the Romans, but was largely forgotten by the time of the Renaissance.
Now a team of researchers has not invented one but a dozen recipes for the valued dye. The group published their findings in the magazine last month NPJ Heritage Science“ Diving in the different combinations of raw materials and heating times that are used to develop Egyptian blue.
The research, which used modern technologies and analysis procedures that were not used in earlier studies, was a collaboration between Washington State University, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) and the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute.
For the project, researchers with different powder formulas made of silicon dioxide, copper, calcium, malachite and sodium carbonate that were subsequently fired at 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit) for one to 11 am. After cooling the formulas, the team studied the results using modern microscopy and microanalytic techniques such as X-ray fraction and Raman spectroscopy, and compared with modern commercial pigments and ancient Egyptian artifacts in the CMNH collection.
The researchers discovered that Egyptian blue is very absurd, because the results varied drastically, depending on changes in processes. Experiments suggested that longer treatment at high temperature and slower cooling phases created Bluer pigments. In particular, the most lively shades only required about 50 percent of the blue -colored components.
“It doesn’t matter what the rest is, which was really surprising to us,” said John S. McCloy, a professor in the state of Washington State University who was one of the main authors of the newspaper, in a press statement. “You can see that every pigment particle contains a lot of things – it is in no way uniform.”
Hyperallergic has asked for comments from McCloy and Edward P. Vicenzi, another main author in the study.
McCloy also said that the project initially started “as something that was fun to do” after researchers were asked to make materials for a museum exhibition. A recent revival of interest in Egyptian blue eventually led the team through a rabbit hole of experiments to gain insight into the methods that ancient cultures used to develop the elusive pigment.
“We hope that this will be a good case study in what science can bring for the study of our human past,” said McCloy.
The Egyptian blue samples can currently be seen at the CMNH as part of the Stories we keep Exhibition, which investigates modern scientific research into Egyptian antiquity and conservation. At the end of 2026 the mixtures will be installed as a permanent display in the long -term exhibition Egypt on the Nile.
