the.com/ochre
the oldest paint on Earth, smeared by humans before they could write their names.
means A natural earthy pigment ranging from yellow to deep red-brown, made from clay tinted with iron oxide, and the color it produces.
from From Old French 'ocre,' from Latin 'ochra,' borrowed from Greek 'ōkhra' — itself rooted in 'ōkhros,' meaning 'pale yellow.' The Greeks named it for its color, but the substance long predates the word: iron-rich earth that humans were grinding and smearing on cave walls tens of thousands of years before any language had a name for it.
- age
- used by humans over 300,000 years ago
- recipe
- just clay tinted by iron oxide rust
- cave star
- colored the Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings
- burial rite
- sprinkled on ancient graves worldwide for millennia
- name root
- from Greek ochros, meaning pale yellow
red center uluru — australian aboriginal sacred site with deep red-orange ochre soil in northern territory
yellow ochre mines roussillon — historic pigment mines in provence, france producing bright yellow ochre for centuries
brown ochre lascaux caves — prehistoric pigment used in 17,000-year-old cave paintings in southwestern france