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The Ancient Art of Color
What painstaking processes created pigments that lasted millennia?
The dye came from several types of sea snails, most notably the murex, a native of the eastern Mediterranean (near Tyre, a Phoenician trading hub), which today has the scientific name Bolinus brandaris. This secretion consists of a tiny drop contained in a white vein, from which the precious liquid for dyeing is distilled… It is a great point to take the fish alive; for when it dies, it spits out this juice. The color is made from two of Egypt’s most abundant resources — sand and natron, a salty mixture found in dried lake beds — mixed with copper and calcium carbonate and heated to very high temperatures.
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