IO9
You'll see Han purple on the famous terracotta warriors surrounding the
tomb of the first emperor of China, or on ancient pottery and other
works of art. Where you won't see it is on anything made between 220
A.D. and 1992, because after the pigment disappeared it took 1700 years
to re-discover it. Elisabeth FitzHugh, a conservator at the
Smithsonian, pinned down the chemical composition of the pigment and
announced it was a barium copper silicate. (The paper
describing the discovery is a fun read. It starts by pointing out the
inferiority of other ancient purple pigments, which tended to be closer
to red than purple. It also stresses that Tyrian purple, made from sea
snails, was a textile dye, not a pigment, and that it could range
anywhere from "reddish-blue to purplish-violet." Take that,
Phoenicians!)
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