#murex and Egyptian blue

[a-mythologynerd]

AHHH My MA paper has been officially approved and accepted for my program!!!

[tyrantisterror]

What groups have changed since their first bit of concept art?

All of the concept art on my tumblr - well, all of the most recent art, I suppose, since some of the newer stuff contradicts some of the older stuff - is pretty up to date in terms of the general idea, even if it’s not as pretty as it could be if I had drawn it right now.

But here - I’ll give you a big old list of all the monsters planned so far that I haven’t drawn after the cut.  It’s not complete, mind you - just the ones I know I’m gonna cover as of now.

Midgaheim Monsterology

SerpentsDragons

Terms that apply to all dragon clades:

Dragonets: young (i.e. everything from baby to adolescent) dragons

Knuckers: freshwater aquatic dragons

Guivres: saltwater aquatic dragons

Hydras: dragons with multiple heads (sufferers of hydra syndrome, a common magical genetic disorder)

Zmeys – three headed variant of Hydra syndrome, lacks enhanced healing

Lesser Drakes

Peludas

Tarasque Peludas

Greater Drakes

Flightless Greater Drakes – greater drakes whose wings are used for other purposes than flight, a missing link between lesser and greater drakes

Puk – a two foot long domesticated dragon from Germanor

Piasa – the only greater drake ever known to be found outside of Midgaheim and Meditera .  Was driven to extinction by competition with Thunderbirds.

Lindorms

Colchian Lindorm

Wyrms

Vouivre: eyeless wyrms

Wyverns

Sting-tailed wyverns

Zilants (False Wyverns)

Amphipteres

Tatzelwyrms

Bergstutzen – mountain dwelling, stout species

Springewurm – leaping species

Stollwurm – burrowing species

Loongs (will be mentioned in the Midgaheim files and eventually expanded upon once I feel confident enough to tackle the many Asian mythologies in full)

Hoogahs

Ground Hoogahs

Kite Hoogahs

Basilisks

Creeping Basilisks (4 legs)

Gallopping Basilisks (6 legs)

Crawling Basilisks (2 legs)

Slithering Basiliks (legless)

Other Serpents

Amphisbaena – two headed serpents that can have anywhere between 0 and 6 legs.  Amphisbaena have two torsos connected by one hip.

Gliding Serpents

Jaculus – a small, bipedal serpent that leaps out of trees.  Its neck frill can resemble wings and allows it to glide for short distances.

Ichneumon (hydrus) – a serpent that preys upon larger serpents, burying itself in mud to attack its foe from beneath.  Similar in appearance to the Jaculus.

Sciatale – a bipedal serpent with brilliantly colored, shining scales that can hypnotize prey.  It is extremely warm.

Aspis – highly venomous winged serpent

Horned Serpents

Cerastes – Horned Serpents form Midgaheim and Mediterra, have ram-like horns

Actual Snakes

Zaltys – a domesticated magical serpent that protects the home of those who keep it; innate healing magic

Cyoneides – massive snakes with hair-like bristles on their backs that eat elephants.  Inhabit marshlands, rivers, and mountains.  Can be mugwort green or blue.  They are constrictors.

Elop – a large viper with incredibly potent venom

Dipsa – an incredibly small snake whose venom is so potent it can kill a human before they even feel the bite

Boyg –  a serpent that oozes acidic slime, native to Germanor

Sjoorm – a snake that lives its juvenile life on land, but moves to the sea for its adulthood.  It is massive.

Aiatar – a gigantic snake that raises its young native to Germanor

Other Reptiles & AmphibiansReptiles

Lizards (Agamidae)

Grylio – a poisonous lizard that poisons fruit to ensnare prey

Turtles (Testudines)

Aspidochelone – also called “asp turtles.”  Predatory turtles with serpentine necks and faces, aspidochelones pretend to be islands, lying dormant for days or even weeks with just their shells exposed.  When amphibious creatures land on their backs, the aspidochelone dives down, drowning its prey so it can eat at its leisure.  Aspidochelones are one of three unrelated sea monsters to use this “false island” hunting method.

Fastitocalon – also called “shield turtles.”  A gentler breed of island turtle, fastitocalons are larger than aspidochelones and feed more on krill and schools of fish.

Pseudosuchians

Waterhorses

Common Waterhorse – native to Celpict

Columba’s Waterhorse – a Celpictish water horse

Morar Waterhorse – a Celpictish water horse

Muckross Waterhorse – a Celpictish water horse

Muc-sheilche – aka the Maree Waterhorse, native to Celpict

Seileag – a Celpictish Waterhorse

Eachy – A Waterhorse native to both Celpict and Francobreton

Lagarfljot – a Germanorean Waterhorse, many humps

Gytrash – a Waterhorse that is more adapted for land than sea, having webbed feet but able to walk fairly well.  They have large, luminous saucer-shaped eyes.

Crocodiles (Crocodyliformes)

Orobon – a short snouted crocodilian, head is vaguely similar to a catfish

Kelpies

Backahast – imitates a log to ensnare prey

Common Celpict Kelpie – the traditional kelpie

Ceffyldwr – a more proactive breed of kelpie

Eachuisge – a kelpie that inhabits lakes (most kelpies prefer running water like rivers) that is particularly intelligent and cruel, sometimes leaving parts of its human victims for other humans to find.

Shoopiltie – a small breed of kelpie that resembles a pony more than a horse

Tangies – a breed of kelpie with seaweed-like hair

Endrop – a breed of kelpie found in south-eastern Germanor and Ruslovak

Haikur – another kelpie species from Germanor

Neugle – a kelpie whose victims are consumed by magical blue fire when drowned

Amphibians

Llamhigyn y Dwr – a large, flying, tail bearing toad from Celpict

Salamandrals – aka Deas, Stellios.  A large newt that can eat and live inside flames.

FishSharks (Selachimorpha)

Murrisk – large shark that releases toxic venom into water to poison prey

Placoderms

Beishtkione – a black headed fish found on the coast of Celpict

Acipenser – a fish whose armored scales are so spikey that they appear to open forward instead of backwards

Ray Finned Fish

Sturgeons

Pontarf – large freshwater fish that can eat children

Large Eels

Freshwater eels (Anguillidae)

Piast – another massive Celpict eel monster

Moray eels (Muraenida)

Skrimsl –massive eels living on the North-Western coast of Germanor

Ciriencroin – a massive, armored eel native to Celpict that preys upon lesser leviathans

Swamfisks (part of Lophiiformes, i.e. anglerfishes) – fish that attract prey by appearing to be decaying

Leviathans (descended from reedfish)

True Leviathans

Isaiah’s Leviathan – The largest breed of leviathan and second most aggressive; can be found much closer to shore than other greater leviathans, making it the most deadly species as far as humans are concerned

Jasconius – The second largest breed of leviathan, often swims in circles, and has sometimes been domesticated due to its unusually docile temperament

Job’s Leviathan – the third largest and most aggressive breed of leviathan

Jonah’s Leviathan – The fourth largest breed of leviathan; not particularly aggressive, but not as docile as Jasconius

Murexes – a purple leviathan that can eat boats, smallest of all the breeds of greater leviathan seen in Midgaheim

Foreign True Leviathans (mention them briefly)

Lotan

Tanin

Rahab

Shell-back Leviathans

Lyngbakr – largest of the lesser leviathans.  Is squat and heavily armored, with dorsal plates that vaguely resemble rocks.  Lays still until others land on its back, then devours them.

Skeljungur – second largest of the lesser leviathans.  Squat, fat, and even more heavily armored than the lyngbakr, with thick scales that rattle when it surfaces.  Has short flippers and no dorsal fins.

Sea Boars

Taumafiskur – A black leviathan with white or pink stripes extending from its eyes to its mouth, and from its mouth outwards.  The stripes give it the appearance of a bridle.  They are particularly unfriendly to humans.

Trolual – A type of leviathan native to Germanor.

Orkus – A type of leviathan

Scolopendra – a whiskered leviathan (small for its clade) with multiple leg-like fins that vomits when caught

Ziphius – a leviathan whose four fins look almost like legs.  It has large eyes, a beaked mouth, and fur-like quills on its neck.

Lobe Finned Fish

Lungfish (Dipnoi)

Yannig – a nocturnal sea monster that screeches like an owl to flush out prey.  It travels between the surface of the ocean and the deep sea.

Human-imitating Fish (Tetrapodomorpha)

Hakenmanns – a massive fish with a human-like face; they are carnivores that feed on humans.

Undines – mermaids if mermaids were fish who just looked humanoid rather than an actual chimeric hybrid

Bishop Fish/Sea Monks – fish with human-like faces and strange, conical frills on their heads that resembles pope hats

Cephalopods

Krakens

Unarmored Krakens

Graceful Krakens

Linaean Kraken – Another kraken with a low reproductive rate

Konung Kraken – large krakens with the lowest reproductive rate of the family, lures fish to its jaws by belching a sweet scent

Tennyson Kraken – a deep sea kraken that only rises to the surface to die

Montfort Kraken – an enormous kraken that preys almost exclusively on fishing ships

Celpict Krakens

Muirselche Kraken – A kraken with an enormous appetite and gut, most commonly found on the coast of Celpict.

Sughmaire Kraken – The only freshwater kraken, related to the Muirselche.

Amored Krakens

Pliny Kraken – a whale hunting breed of kraken

Island Krakens

Hafgufa Kraken – enormous kraken that can swallow men, ships, and even some whales.

Pontoppidan Kraken – a kraken that hunts like the aspidochelone, lying dormant on the surface to resemble an island before ensnaring prey that land on its back.  It also moves so fast that it creates deadly whirlpools

Wallenberg Kraken – A heavily armored but comparatively small species of kraken whose excrement attracts schools of fish, which the kraken ultimately feeds on

Swamp Krakens

Buratche-ah-Ilgs – a shapeless blob creature covered in eyes which occasionally shoot fire, native to northern Germanor

BirdsFowl (Galliformes)

Phoenixes (descended from peacocks)

Mediterran Phoenix

Francobreton Fenix

Ruslovak Fenix

Foreign Phoenixes (mention briefly)

Milcham

Egyptian Phoenix - Benmu

Asian Phoenixes – Feng Wangs and Ho-Os

Stymphalian Birds – carnivorous swans/geeze with toxic shit and barbs that shoot out of their wings

Gulls (Laridae)

Boobrie – a huge seagull that eats sheep

Raptors

Rukhs (i.e. giant eagles)

Kaukasios Rukh: A massive eagle native to Mediterra

Midgaheim Rukh: Hraesvelg’s species

Cornu: a black rukh native to Celpict

Kreutzet: a ruhk from Ruslovak

Bariuchne: a Midgaheim ruhk that is closely related to the Ziz

Foreign Rukhs (mention briefly)

Sinbad’s Rukh

Ziz

Thunderbirds

Adarllwchgwins – massive, domesticated hawks made for riding

Habergeiss – a nocturnal owl with horns that shrieks when a person is about to die.  Native to Germanor.

Perching Birds (Passeriformes)

Messenger Ravens – Incredibly intelligent corvids that are as big as wolves

Hyrcinian birds – a type of nocturnal songbird with bioluminescent feathers; native to Germanor

MammalsUngulates

Behemoths (sub-clade to Perissodactyla)

True Behemoths

Job’s Behemoth (mention only)

Midgaheim Behemoth

Catoblepas: a behemoth native to Midgaheim noted for its weak neck muscles and impenetrable skin.

Beithir: a behemoth native to Francobreton that is covered in thick fur instead of thick skin

Odontotyrannus – a large, black behemoth with three cranial horns growing from its forehead.  It is carnivorous and eats elephants.

Unicorns

Monoceros Unicorn:  a missing link between unicorns and behemoths, the armored unicorn is a small behemoth with a prominent cranial horn used for goring its enemies.

True Unicorn: a creature that superficially resembles a horse, with long goat-like legs, a long, flowing lion-like tail, and a more deer-like face.  Its main feature is its horn, which is made of a magical substance called alicorn.

Scythian unicorn: a gray, unimpressive unicorn native to Mediterra

Cartazonon: a yellow-red unicorn with a black horn and a long mane, incredibly aggressive.

Yale: a two horned creature related to the unicorn, whose two cranial horns are articulated by muscles.  Has the dainty body of a Pure unicorn, but traces of the elephant-like armor of behemoths, and a boar-like mouth

Horses and donkeys

Sleipnirs – massive eight legged horses.

Diomedean Horses – carnivorous horses

Aneskelades – a giant donkey that can shrink to the size of a regular donkey

Swine

Cthonic Boars

Whales

Stokkull – a blind sperm whale whose face is covered in strange, fleshy flaps of skin

Raudkembingur – a sperm whale with a red “comb” of dorsal fins along its neck.

Nauthveli – a sperm whale with a cow’s bicolor pattern and a more serpentine tail (no fluke).

Swordfiskur – an orca-like porpoise whose dorsal fin is hard and sharp, allowing it to gore its prey (larger sea monsters, particularly baleen whales) from below

Hrosshvalur – a red-maned porpoise with a horse-like head and enormous eyes.

Mushveli – a dolphin with a ratlike face and a whiplike tail

Deer

White Hart – a magical stag

Sianach – a huge, aggressive, ugly deer native to Francbreton and Celpict

Achlis – an elk with an enormous upper lip and poorly articulated legs

Bovines

Busse – a cow with stag-like horns that can camouflage like a chameleon

Urus – a cow whose massive horns are serrated to saw down trees

Tarbhuisge – a massive, aquatic, ocean dwelling bull

Geryon Cattle – red & purple cows that were discovered by the Mediterran ogre Geryon

Bonnacon – cows attuned to fire magic

Midgaheim Bonnacon – shits fires

Mediteran Bonnacon – breathes fire

Caprinae (Sheeps & Goats

Khrysomallos – flying, golden fleeced ram

Dorraghow – a monstrous otter from Celpict

Felines

Cathanegs – i.e. magically attuned members of panthera

Irusan – a particularly massive cathaneg from Celpict

Murcat – a tusked cathaneg native to Celpict

Armored Lions – various thick skinned lions of Mediterra

Nemean Lion

Cithaeronian Lion

Gulon – essentially a magical bobcat, native to Germanor

Crocottas: massive hyenas

Canines

Calopus – a horned wolf with long, porcupine-like quills on its back

Barghests (Fenrisbrood, Hrodvitnirs) – magically attuned wolves

Orthrus – a massive two headed hound

Freybugs – magically attuned feral hounds

Aufhocker – another, larger breed of magically attuned feral hound

Seals

Katthveli – a massive whale-sized seal with a voracious appetite for flesh.  Its flippers have hooks, its face has whiskers, and males have tusks in addition to sharp teeth.

Roshwalr – giant, vicious walruses native to the northern coasts of Germanor

Rodents

Afanc – a giant carnivorous beaver native to Celpict and Francobreton

Apes

Nependis – an ape monster with a boar-like face

Hominds

Acephali (also called Blemyahs)– humanoids whose heads are directly connected to their chests (no neck)

Blue Men of Minch – hostile subterranean people native to Celpict

Circhos – an aquatic humanoid with three toed feet whose legs are different lengths.

Ogres

Hill Ogres

Mountain Ogres

Cloud Ogres

Jotun

Aesir

Titans

Centimanes (Hekatonkheires)

Greater Cyclopes

Argus

Lesser Cyclopes

Fair Folk/Forest Folk/Fairies/Nature SpiritsTrolls

Swamp Trolls

River Trolls

Pond Trolls

Forest Trolls

House Trolls

Cave Trolls

Mountain Trolls

Sea Trolls

Goblins

Hobgoblins

Goblins

Boggarts

Grindylows

Redcaps – not a subtype of goblin, but a philosophy

Other Humanoid Fairies

Attercroppes – snake people (i.e. snakes with humanoid arms and legs – not serpentaurs)

Sprites – bug people

Kobolds – small dog people

Low Elves/Brownies – rodent people

Leprechauns

Gnomes/dwarves

High Elves/Alfar - faeries that are actually descended from humans

Liosalfar – light elves

Dockalfar – dark elves

Schrats – forest elves

Huldra – beautiful, tall, always female fairies whose backs appear to be hollow and who have long, ox-like tails

Sylphs

Dryads

Nymphs

Nereids – fish people

Mandrakes – humanoid plants

Hamadryads – human above the waist, tree below

Bestial Fairies

Bugbears (fairies of indistinct clade)

Phookas

Cait Sith – fairy cats

Cud Sith – fairy dogs

Crodh Sidhe – aquatic fairy cows

Undead-like Fairies

Dullahans

Banshees

Monstrous Fairies

Nuckleavees

Formian Giants

ChimerasBestial Chimeras

Draconic Chimeras

Lou Carcolh – Dragon & Snail Hybrid, enormous, resembles a snail-shelled dragon with tentacles over its mouth, drips with slime

Tarasque – a complicated chimera: hybrid of dragon, basilisk, turtle, and lion

Zburator – Dragon & Fenrisbrood hybrid

Alphyn – Dragon & Cathaneg hybrid

Naui – a dragon with the head and wings of an eagle; first created in Ruslovak

Draikainas – Dragon, Titan, & Serpentaur hybrid

The Hybrid Children of Echidna

Lernaen Hydra – most of genetic code comes from a Mediterran Lesser Drake species

Ladon – most of genetic code comes from a Mediterran Wyrm species

Chimaera – dragon, basilisk, lion, goat mix

Cerberus – half dragon, half hound; hydra syndrome results in three canine heads and multiple serpent heads

Cetus – half dragon, half kraken

Crommyonian Sow – half boar, half dragon

Cockatrices

Strutting Cockatrices (two legged)

Scuttling Cockatrices (six legged)

Skoffin (Draconic Cockatrices)

Codrile – a particularly unstable and massive cockatrice made of rooster, basilisk, crocodile, and dragon parts that goes through several metamorphoses.  They have a gem-like plate on their forehead.

Amphisien – cockatrice with a head on the end of its tail, made by mixing an amphisbaena with a basilisk and a roosters

Griffins

Hippogriffs

Heliodromos (Vulture griffin)

Keythong (wingless griffin, kinda pointless)

Hippocampi

Mediteran Hippocampi

Biast Na Srognig – the horned hippocampus, has one unicorn-like horn

Havehest – a hippocampus whose body is entirely fish and whose head is mostly horse

Enfields – fox/eagle hybrids

Perytons – flying stags

Questing Beasts – hybrid of snake, leopard, and stag

Leucrottas – hybrid of crocotta, cathaneg, and unicorn, with monstrously large jaws that none of its component parts have.  Has the legs and tail of a unicorn, neck of a lion, and the rest is a monstrous caricature of a crocotta.

Pegasi – flying horses.

Serras – a monster with the body of a fish, the head of a lion, and the wings of a bat.

Parandus – a hybrid of bear & ibex

Wolpertinger – a rabbit with fangs, antlers, and wings

Ant-lions – one of the most notorious failed chimeras in history, doomed to die because its digestive system cannot handle the food it hungers for.

Allocamelus – a camel with a donkey’s head.

Cameleopard – A hybrid of camel and leopard, has horns for some reason.

Calygreyhound – a mix of eagle, bull, and antelope.  Front legs and skull of an eagle, body and horns of an antelope, and hind legs of a bull.

Celphie – a cow with five legs, which are cow legs at the start and human arms at the end.  It’s made purely as an oddity.

Centycore – a lion bodied, horse limbed, bear headed hybrid with an enormous mouth and ears that speaks in a human voice.

Dard – a creature with the body of a lizard, the neck of a horse, and the head of a cat

Falconfish – exactly what it sounds like

Human Hybrids

Mermaids

Merrows

Selkies

Scylla

Charybdis

Arepyiai

Sirens

Harpies

Erinyes

Centaurs

Hippocentuar – part man, part horse, part fish

Ipopodes – a centaur that functions like a satyr – i.e. only has a horse’s hindlegs, not the forelegs.

Onocentaur – part man, part donkey

Minotaurs

Serpentaurs

Melusines – humannoids that are human (with some snake features) above the waist, and snake below

Draconcopedes – like normal serpentaurs, except they lack arms

Gorgons

Arachnes

Cacus – three human heads, breaths fire

Myrmidons

Bicorns

Mediteran Sphinxes

Manticores

Fauns

Satyrs

Nains – Francobreton satyrs with clawed hands and carnivorous appetites

Gaborchends – goat headed men

Cynocephali – dog headed men

Donestres – lion-headed men

UndeadGhosts

Poltergeists

Wraiths

Specters

Phantoms

Vampires

Moroi

Strigoi

Vrykolakas

Stryzga

Ghouls/Draugr

Revenants

Varcolacs

Therianthropes

Werewolves

Conscious

Unconscious

Chapalu

Berserkers

[ntrending]

How humans created color for thousands of years

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/how-humans-created-color-for-thousands-of-years/

How humans created color for thousands of years

Source of a different color. (illustration by Marcela Restrepo/)

Most of the hues we look at these days come courtesy of 16,777,216 alphanumeric keys called Hex codes; tinting your technicolor digital life is as simple as copying a string of characters. But the shades on this page—and all your off-screen belongings—come from resources we must conscript to create our chosen chroma. Affixing color to an object (and making it stick) is tricky business. For most of human history, we’ve derived dyes from nature: People cooked plants and animals until they produced the desired pigment, or mined precious minerals from subterranean seams and ground them into paints. But even once we took to the lab to concoct new colors, some shades remained rarefied. This chart shows a few of the commodities that tint our kaleidoscopic world—and how long it took their popularity to fade.

1. Tyrian purple

Phoenician and Roman emperors loved that this wine-colored dye didn’t fade. But making just an ounce meant milking or crushing 250,000 Murex sea snails, which use their tinted mucus to protect eggs and sedate prey.

2. Ultramarine

For more than a thousand years, a single region in Afghanistan was the only source of lapis lazuli, the blue rock we refine into ultra­marine. Scarcity and a supposed resistance to fading made it as valuable as gold for millennia.

3. Imperial yellow

Only the Chinese emperor and his representatives were allowed this spiritually significant shade. With a simple wood-ash ­mordant—​an oxide that affixes dyes to ­materials—​the golden foxglove-​plant extract easily sticks to silk.

4. Mummy

“Dead man’s head” was one part oil, one part amber resin, and too ​­many ​­parts Homo sapiens. It got its brown tint from the flesh, bones, and bandages of well-preserved Egyptian corpses. Fittingly, artists used it for skin tones.

5. Scheele’s green

While Carl Wilhelm Scheele worried his lab-derived copper arsenite tincture might be toxic, it was also bright and stable. Companies used it on everything from wallpaper to dresses—until (and, in some cases, after) people started dying.

6. Perkin’s mauve

Chemist William Perkin accidentally invented his eponymous purple while trying to synthesize the malaria treatment quinine from coal tar in 1856. Victorians adored it, but what we call “mauve” today is a more demure shade.

This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 Make It Last issue of Popular Science.

Written By Eleanor Cummins

[hallsp]

Lebanon

The people of Lebanon were known to the Hebrews and to themselves as the Canaanites. Later, they became known to the Greeks as the Phoenicians, from their word for the royal purple murex dye made in the city of Tyre.

In reality, Phoenicia was a string of powerful independent city-states along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean: Byblos, Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre. Theirs was a trading empire, spanning the whole Mediterranean, with its peak around 800 before the common era. Eventually, the Phoenicians founded other cities, including Cadiz in Spain and Carthage in Tunisia. Carthage itself would go on to forge its own empire, leading to clashes with the Romans in what became known as the Punic Wars. Hannibal would famously cross the Alps with war elephants.

The Phoenicians profoundly influenced the Greeks, from whom we inherit much of Western civilization. The Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language, native to Canaan, and used an alphabet derived from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. This is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenicians spread it all over the Med, where it evolved into Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The Phoenicians had their own pantheon, names known (and often condemned) in the Bible. In 1 Kings 18, for example, Elijah defeats the prophets of Ba'al when Yahweh answers his invocation with fire. The people of Phoenicia were ancients to the Greeks. To them, they lived at the time of the Gods.

Zeus was the most powerful of all the gods, king of the Olympians, who defeated his father and the Titans in a battle for control of the world and all that's in it. He married Hera.  He had the power to change form. The most beautiful woman in the world was Europa, a Phoenician princess.

Lebanon is a land of mountains and valleys, bound by the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The white snow-capped mountains give Lebanon its name, from the language of the Phoenicians. The ancient Phoenicians called this land  The Greeks

The Phoenicians formed part of the landscape of mythology belonging to the Ancient Greeks.

There was Dido, the founder of carthage. There was Cadmus. There was Europa. Pygmalion, inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's play of the same name, a Phoenician name, who fell in love with a sculpture.

Gilgamesh fights Humbaba in the cedar forests.

Beirut was a city of spies, among them Kim Philby, and movie stars.

and their beautiful cedar trees were known to the authors of the

The most charming moments -- and also the most frustrating -- come when the electricity cuts, which happens for three hours every day on a predetermined schedule. Although it cuts randomly too. It is in these moments that people come out onto their balconies, children go outside to play games, music starts up, and In the dark winter months, you must reach for a candle to read by half-light.

Lebanon looks most magnificent in the long evenings, when its rolling hills are bathed in the crimson half-light as the sun sets over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. I think al

Lebanon, for me, is the distinct aroma of warm Mediterranean air, of coffee with cardamom, and of lemon and mint shisha. It’s the sound of katydids chirping in the summer sun, of Fairouz playing in the mornings, of church bells and muezzins, and of Arabic shouted in the streets. It’s also the unrelenting drone of traffic and beeping. It’s the taste of zataar and sugary tea or cheap cigarrettes and bottles of Almaza. It’s endless games of backgammon. It’s dancing debke.

One must travel north to get a proper perspective on the country, from the coast near one of the seaside towns, Jounieh perhaps. Dark green mountains rise suddenly and unexpectedly from the sea, dotted with cream coloured buildings, the sun sparkling in the water, a bright blue sky framing the canvas.

The main artery of the country is called the Sea Highway, and runs north-south from Tripoli to Sour. You're at sea level on this route but turn off the highway into the traditional heartland and you're climbing the mountains in the direction of Bilad al-Sham, Syria.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Hidden Labor Behind the Luxurious Colors of Purple and Indigo

Late second or early first century mosaic likely depicting a murex shell; from Rome, and now in Centrale Montemartini (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Perhaps no other color in history has been so celebrated and so reviled as the color purple. Although it has come to be known as the shade of royalty, the workers who labored to make the dye in the Roman Mediterranean were often viewed as lowly. During the later Roman empire, these workers were even subject to state control. From diamonds to coal to Tyrian purple, the workers who create luxury goods often do not enjoy the same status as their products.

In ancient Greek, purple had a number of names. The noun πορφύρα (porphyra) was frequently used to refer to purple cloth, and is still the root of the name for the purple-hued porphyry stone that Greeks and Romans prized for sculpture, sarcophagi, and even the bath tubs of the ancient world. Our word “purple” is derived from the Latin word purpura, which was often applied to the dye used to turn clothing to a rich blueish-red shade. Unlike today, there was a more profound hierarchy of color that could and did advertise status to others. Purple was one of these aesthetic markers, though there were many shades to choose from.

Porphyry “Bathtub of Nero” now at the Vatican Museums in Rome; the tub dates to the first century CE. (Photo via Wikimedia)

The most prized and expensive dye was called Tyrian purple, which came from small mollusks called murex snails. The natural historian Pliny remarked on the rather unpleasant smell of the murex conchylium — one of the marine gastropods often used to produce the prized purplish-red dye. A number of mollusks in fact contained hypo-branchial glands whose secretions could be used to turn fabrics various shades of purple. Pliny and Aristotle note that it wasn’t until the snails died that it was secreted. Consequently, for the production of the pigment, we should imagine thousands of rotting shellfish laid out in purple dye workshops along the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Early twentieth century experimentations in trying to recreate the purple dye in fact led to the conclusion that eight thousand mollusks produced a single gram of the substance.

A ninth century CE gospel lectionary made during the reign of Charlemagne, this lectionary was not made with Tyrian purple, but was likely dyed with an imitation purple made from lichens (Rhein-Meuse region), now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California (photo by the author for Hyperallergic).

Purple dye production was a gritty and often conspicuous, seaside business for those doing the intense manual labor required to harvest it. Although there are few other references to it, the Roman poet Martial alludes to the fact that Tyrian purple, named after the city of Tyre, retained a distinct, rather fishy smell even after it had been made into a garment. He mentions a certain Philaenis, who enjoyed wearing the luxurious textile for its smell rather than for its color. The poet also composed a list of bad smelling things that he would rather smell like than a woman named Bassa: sulphurous waters, a fish pond, an amorous goat, the old shoes of a veteran soldier, the breath of a Jew who had been fasting, ointment made from Sabine oil, and fleece twice dipped in Tyrian purple (‘bis murice uellus inquinatum’). Smelling worse than even a double-dipped fleece of Tyrian purple was quite the slur against the woman. One wonders if Romans could detect the use of imitation purple by Mediterranean dyers made based solely on the smell of the clothing.

Purple page from the sixth century CE Codex Argenteus (“silver codex”) that transmits the translation of the Bible into the Gothic language (image via Wikimedia)

Lower-level dye workers in Roman workshops were often slaves, and probably had stained hands in addition to a distinct odor attached to them. However, like the business of tanning leather, ownership of the business itself appears highly lucrative. The economy of the ancient city of Tyre was partially dependent on the selling of purple dye, and a number of inscriptions etched on stone proudly attest to the activity of purple traders there and nearby.

Other cities and areas in the East, such as Berytus, also depended on the precious dye, until the state consolidation and tighter control of Tyrian purple that perhaps began under the Roman emperor Severus Alexander and intensified up to the reign of Justinian. During the late Roman empire, laws restricted the wearing of purple to the imperial family, and purple dye workers became relegated to a labor caste that became hereditary and overseen by the state. Tyrian purple and imitation dyes were also used to make expensive bibles and to denote their value with purple pages written upon with gold and silver inks.

It was not until after 1453 that a serious blow to the Byzantine and ecclesiastical use of purple (particularly purple silks) to denote high status was dealt. It was in this year that Constantinople was captured by the Turks and the supply of purple to the Church in the west was cut off. A papal decree of 1464 written by Pope Paul II dictated that cardinals within the clergy would now wear a scarlet hue derived from kermes, a dye procured from scale insects.

If we look to the history of another purplish hue, indigo, we see a similar regulation of the labor force — and the very bodies — of those used to produce it. We get the word indigo from the Greek Ἰνδικός (indikos), which simply means Indian. Like many dyes, it was named for the place it came from. In Latin, it became indicum, and was introduced to Romans probably around the reign of the emperor Augustus (r. 31 BCE–14 CE).

Oscar Mallitte (British, about 1829 – 1905, active Allahabad, India 1870s) “Cutting Indigo into Cakes” (1877); Allahabad, India; albumen silver print; 14.8 x 20.6 cm (5 13/16 x 8 1/8 in.) Three Indian men cutting a large cake of indigo into smaller bricks (Image via the Getty Open Content Program)

Indigo came from the leaves of fermented indigo plants, though Roman writers were often confused as to whether it was mineral based or plant based. The architect Vitruvius noted that imitation indigo came into vogue when Romans could not buy the pricey import: “Again, for want of indigo, they dye Selinusian or anularian chalk with dyer’s woad, which the Greeks call ἰσάτις, and make an imitation of indigo.”

Honors students at the University of Iowa practiced dying wool with indigo in Prof. Rosemary Moore’s ancient dyes workshop. (photo by Rosemary Moore and used by permission)

The popularity and potential for profit from indigo dye lasted into the early modern period and extended into the new world during the middle of the eighteenth century in particular. Indigo was an integral part of the transatlantic slave trade, wherein many slaves were brought from West Africa into the West Indies and the Americas in order to grow and then harvest the valuable plant.

After harvest, the dye often went back across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold to wealthy Europeans. Within what is now the United States, indigo came to be cultivated particularly in South Carolina. Indigo farming in the United States is a subject explored extensively by art historian Andrea Feeser in her book, Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life.

As Feeser points to, there was a vicious cycle of use, production, and exploitation both of African slaves and native peoples in order to produce indigo in the American South. Even here, there was a hierarchy. South Carolinian indigo was viewed as inferior to that made by the French and Spanish. Many African-American slave workers had their hands and arms dyed a shade of pale blue while making indigo cakes which would then be used to die wool, linen, and other fibers. When the American Revolution came, the British market for selling indigo went bust. As a result, many farmers turned to rice — although a few southern plantations continued to grow indigo up to the mid-nineteenth century.

Blue kerchief from Tutankhamun’s embalming cache (working Date: 1336–1327 B.C.); the linen kerchief, dyed with indigo, may have belonged to Tutankhamun when he was a child; Egyptian ArtCulture (photography by the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In the conclusion to Red, White, and Black Make Blue, Feeser notes the “Janus-faced” nature of indigo: “The past is not a singular phenomenon to be recovered, but a social fabric to be woven from diverse historical strands to become a means to clothe the present with knowledge and foresight … the shrub enriched many lives but simultaneously impoverished many others.” Many white plantation owners grew wealthy off the labor of African slaves used to feed the hunger for rich dyes, just as Roman emperors used compulsory and slave labor to run the purple dye workshops of the their empires. Cheap labor has always been attractive to people in power.

This tendency to celebrate the product rather than the producer of luxury goods is one that is still common today. Few that wear diamonds, who burn coal, or who buy textiles think about the workers who produce these goods. The invisible labor of those who created luxury goods did not go unnoticed in the ancient world either. The historian Plutarch recognized the divide in his biography of the fifth-century BCE Athenian general Pericles:

In other cases, admiration of the deed is not immediately accompanied by an impulse to do it. No, quite the contrary, many times while we delight in the work, we despise the δημιουργός (“workman”) who works for the people, a skilled workman, handicraftsman workman, as, for instance, in the case of perfumes and dyes; we take a delight in them, but dyers and perfumers we regard as base and vulgar folk.

The history of Tyrian purple, indigo, and many other dyes is fascinating, but it is also a reminder of how we forget the people and the labor behind the products we use everyday. This history should also remind us that slave labor continues to be used to create products like sugar in the Dominican Republic or t-shirts in Bangladesh. This will likely not change until we value modern miners, farmers, and dyers for their workmanship in the ways that we value fine artists for their art.

The post The Hidden Labor Behind the Luxurious Colors of Purple and Indigo appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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