Amarna blue

Description

An early cobalt blue pigment used on pottery in Egypt (18 Dynasty, c. 1400 BC). Analaysis of the blue colorant in pottery fragment (Ude et all 2002) indicated it is composed of Co(M)Al2O4, where M denotes Mn, Fe, Ni and Zn. Gypsum was also found with the Amarna blue.

Resources and Citations

• M. Uda, M. Nakamura, S. Yoshimura, J. Kondo, M. Saito, Y. Shirai, S. Hasegawa, Y. Baba, K. Ikeda, Y. Ban, A. Matsuo, M. Tamada, H. Sunaga, H. Oshio, D. Yamashita, Y. Nakajima, T. Utaka, 'Amarna blue painted on ancient Egyptian pottery', Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Volume 189, Issues 1–4, 2002.