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Minoans & dolphins.
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Chilbudios View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
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Joined: 11-May-2006
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Minoans & dolphins.
    Posted: 12-Oct-2006 at 09:57
Until the discovery of indogo in the Americas, the only way to make a bright blue paint was to use crushed lapis lazuli (which for a long time was indeed only found in Egypt, or traded through Egypt from further east). Of course this made blue a very very expensive colour and it was only used for rich people and in palaces and temples. In the Middle Ages, manuscript illuminations with lots of blue were still prestige items.
Actually, if I'm to judge by the colors used by Italian pre-Renaissant painters (Siena school, for instance) there were several types of blue before the discovery of Columbus.
First, there were types of European and Asian indigos made from various plants.
Then, beside the ultramarine produced from lapis lazuli (which indeed was very expansive), they used azurite, a cheaper and unexotic pigment (was extracted from copper mines - some of them were in Germany, hence the name Bergblau but also azzuro d'Alemagna).
Moving in Antiquity, in Egypt besides lapis lazuli was used also an 'Egyptian blue' which was synthetised from various elements (copper compounds, sand etc.). I think the Romans call it Alexandrian Blue.
 
I assume cobalt could be another mineral source for blue, yet I am not certain of its usage in Europe's Antiquity or Middle Ages.
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Aelfgifu View Drop Down
Caliph
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Oct-2006 at 10:01
You are probably right, I must admit I am not to sure of the origin of Idigo. But Lapis Lazuli was the only way to get a bright intense blue, both indigo and copper will only give duller darker colors.
What I was most referring to in my post was that for a long time, having lots of blue on your walls, furniture or in your books was a statussymbol. And I am pretty sure it was for the Minoans as well.

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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