The body has been lying face-down for close to two thousand years. When archaeologists reached tomb 162, on the outskirts of modern Solin, Croatia, they immediately noticed something at odds with the rest of the cemetery: the deceased had not been laid on their back, as Roman custom required, but on their stomach. Around the […]

Egyptian blue predates the pyramids’ final form. Egyptian artisans were producing it before 3100 BCE, making it, as far as archaeologists know, the first pigment humans ever manufactured synthetically. It’s a compound called cuprorivaite (calcium copper silicate), made by firing silica, lime, copper compounds, and alkaline salts at high temperature until they crystallize into a […]