The People Who Were Turned Into Paint

less than 1m read

·Nov 10, 2024

There are four people in this painting. Three of them are made out of paint. The fourth is the paint.

The interior of a kitchen was painted in 1815, and like many paintings from that time, one of the colors used in it was mummy Brown, a pigment literally made from the ground up dried flesh of ancient mummies.

Today, we hollow mummies as fragile time capsules, but in the 1700s, there was a thriving mummy trade between Egypt and Europe. Ground up mummy was believed to have mystic healing powers, and the oil paints that could be made from it were highly valued.

So, mummy Brown was used in countless paintings for hundreds of years. It wasn't until the late 1800s that people began to really question its use. The dwindling supply of mummies didn't help either, and so it began to fall out of fashion.

The people who were turned into paint didn't ask to be. What they wanted was immortality, and they may have got what they wanted, but they also got an afterlife they didn't expect. Not one for their personal souls, but one for the anonymous beauty of the rotten, tari darkness.

Anyone can become… [Music]

Kirsty Nathoo with Shan-Lyn Ma, Founder of Zola

The View From Above | Stoic Exercises For Inner Peace

View All

Suing Robinhood - Again

What’s down, you guys? It’s Graham here, and this is not a video that I was planning to make today. In fact, I was never planning to make a video like this ever. But given the recent circumstances and allegations, I think this is worth diving into further…

Chase Adam at Startup School 2013

Hi everyone. My name is Chase, and like Jessica said, we recently had the privilege of being the first nonprofit to go through Y Combinator. So, to tell you just a quick one minute about Watsi, we’re a nonprofit crowdfunding platform. The easiest way to t…

Safari Live - Day 174 | National Geographic

This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and carcasses. Viewer discretion is advised. A very good afternoon everybody and everyone, and a very warm welcome also to our sunset safari drive all the way from the K…

Creativity break: how is creativity in biology changing the world? | Khan Academy

[Music] I think it’s really exciting how biology and creativity have combined, particularly in the area of health and outcomes. How do we help people with blindness? How do we help people who are paraplegic? Where we can start to read the electrical acti…

Juvenoia

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. Skeletons are scary and spooky, but you know what else is? Teenagers. Their attitude, the way they dress, and the music they listen to. Can you even call it music? Pff, kids these days. But what are kids these days? What’s with …

The Warning Of Hyper Inflation | $2 Trillion Stimulus

What’s up you guys, it’s Graham here. So I’m gonna be attempting to answer one of the most difficult questions that I’ve been getting asked recently here in the channel after this new stimulus plan was recently passed, and that would be: Am I still wearin…

The People Who Were Turned Into Paint

More Articles