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]

Writing expressions with parentheses | 6th grade | Khan Academy

McDonald v. Chicago | National Constitution Center | Khan Academy

View All

The 5 BEST Index Funds That Will Make You RICH

What’s up you guys? It’s Graham here. So, we’re gonna play a really quick game. Just put up five fingers, and if all five fingers are still up by the time that we’re done, then you could watch the whole video. And if not, sorry, you gotta leave. I don’t m…

This school year may be ending but we have lots to do for next year.

Hi, I’m Salon, founder of the Khan Academy, and I just wanted to let you know how excited all of us are for what we have in store this coming back to school. First and foremost, this is going to be a big effort in terms of working with teachers and class…

Alex Honnold Before the Climb | Free Solo

He said he’s feeling tinges of, like, game time. I think there’s a chance he goes tomorrow. There are remote cameras because we want to stay out of Alex’s line of sight when he’s doing it. OK, everybody knows what to do if something goes wrong. Josh, jus…

Americapox: The Missing Plague

Between the first Europeans arriving in 1492 and the Victorian age, the indigenous population of the New World dropped by at least 90%. The cause? Not the conquistadors and company – they killed lots of people, but their death count is nothing compared to…

Neutron Star Merger Gravitational Waves and Gamma Rays

Due to the crazy technological challenges that had to be overcome in order to detect gravitational waves, some people were skeptical that scientists had actually done it, that they’d actually seen gravitational waves from black holes - after all, there wa…

The Egyptian and Hittite Peace Treaty | Lost Treasures of Egypt

[Music] In Luxor’s Karnak Temple, Colleen is hunting for clues that explain Ramsay’s rise to power. Ramses was a mighty warrior and general who fought in many campaigns and expanded Egypt’s borders to the east and south. But the temple walls suggest that’…

The People Who Were Turned Into Paint

More Articles