Scientists recreate Egyptian blue dye with 5,000 years

A team of investigators was able to recreate the oldest synthetic pigment in the world, called the Egyptian blue, which was widely used in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ago.

In a new study, researchers from Washington University (WSU), Carnegie Natural History Museum and Smithsonian Museum tried to recreate the well -known “Egyptian Blue”, pigment whose Revenue was lost over time.

During the course, whose results were published in the magazine NPJ Heritage Scienceresearchers used a variety of raw materials and heating times to develop 12 Possible recipes for pigment.

“We hope this will be a good study case, with which science can investigate our past,” he says John McCloyDirector of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering of WSU and the main author of the article.

Although Egyptian blue pigment was highly valued in antiquity, there are few archaeological remains of its manufacture. “The work aims to highlight the way modern science reveals stories hidden in Egyptian objects Old ”says McCloy.

Pigment was used as Substitute of expensive minerals Like turquoise or lazuli pencil and was used to paint wood, stone and a kind of ancestral carton.

Depending on its ingredients and the time that it took to be processed, the color had a variation between deep blue and gray or spleen green. After the Egyptians, the pigment was used by the Romans, but during the period of the Renaissance, the knowledge of how it was forgotten it.

McCloy explains that in recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in pigment because has optical, magnetic and biological properties interesting with potential new technological applications.

The pigment emits light on the infrared part close to the electromagnetic spectrum that people cannot see, which means it can be applied to things like fingerprints and falsification inks.

Also has a chemistry similar to super conductors High temperature: “It started to be fun to do, because they asked us to produce some materials to expose in the museum, but there is a lot of interest in the material,” said McCloy

According to, to understand its composition, the researchers, including a mineralologist and an Egyptologist, created 12 Different recipes Pigment from silicon dioxide mixtures, copper, calcium and sodium carbonate.

Warmed the material about 1,000 ° C for 1 to 11 hours to reproduce the temperatures that would be available to the artists of the past.

After cooling the samples at different speeds, they studied the pigments using Modern microscopy techniques and analysis that had never been used for this type of investigation, comparing them with two ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Egyptian blue included a variety of blues, which is directly influenced by the manufacturing site and its quality. Researchers found that pigment is highly heterogeneous – Changes color constantly.

“There were people who made the pigment and then transported it to another place, where it was used. We saw that, with only small differences In the process, they got very different results ”diz McCloy.

Investigators found that, in fact, to get the color in a blue tone, about 50% of blue components. “It was possible to see that each pigment particle contains a number of things – it’s not uniform at all,” says McCloy.

The samples created are currently in exhibition At the Carnegie Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and will be part of the museum’s new long -term gallery, focusing on ancient Egypt.