Fresh Out of Mummies

Maybe it’s just as well that some traditional pigments are no longer made from their original sources.

Sepia brown was once made from the ink sac of the cuttlefish. There’s a chemical substitute now, thank goodness for the little cephalopods.

Indian yellow *allegedly came from the concentrated urine of cows fed on mango leaves. It was outlawed in 1908, because it was hard on the cows.

And mummy brown derived from the ground-up remains of Egyptian mummies. They stopped in the twentieth century when the supply of mummies ran out.

*More on the Indian yellow mystery, link and link.

Tomorrow: Sky Blue