When And Where Color Names Developed

Here is an interesting overview on the origin of color for the colored stone dealers, jewelers, gemologists and consumers.

Methuen writes:

Near the medieval village of Santillana del Mar in Northern Spain are the caves of Altamira, which contain some of the world’s most famous pre-historic paintings. In the flickering yellow light of a torch, cavemen saw bison, wild pigs, deer and horses painted on the cave walls in strong red earth, black and yellow ochre. The Cromagnon artist who painted these animals some 20000 years ago captured their movement with astonishing realism. In Lascaux and many other pre-historic caves, paintings of animals, rendered in similar colors and with equal artistry, have also been discovered.

The use of colors, however, extends even farther back in time, perhaps as much as 150,000 to 200,000 years. Ice age man buried his dead in red ochre or painted their bones a red color, he had observed that the flow of red blood meant the difference between life and death and probably believed that the color red itself was therefore life-giving.

The ability of Ice Age man to distinguish colors as existing independently of objects meant that the art of color abstraction had already been born. With its development arose the need for color names to identify these new concepts. To begin with, colors were probably given the same names as the paints, obtained from blood or ochre, which were used to produce them. In the oldest Indo-European language, Sanskrit, rudhira means blood; the first part of this word appears again in the Greek and Latin words for red (erythros and rutilus), as well as in the word red in many modern languages, such as the German rot, the Danish rod. Even the Eskimo word for red, aupaluktak, is derived from the word for blood, auk.

Man was probably long aware of the beauty inherent in the colors of his natural surroundings—the blue of the sky, the radiant orange and red hues of a sunset, the variety of colors found in flowers. But he probably was not aware of color as an independent concept until the idea of color assumed tangible form in its use for decorative or religious purposes. Since the concept of color as an independent entity is assumed to precede color names, the availability of materials which could be used as pigments was a prerequisite for the development of such names. A study of many cultures through the ages reveals that the use of an increasing variety of colors is accompanied by the development of words to characterize them.

The cave paintings described were rendered in only five colors: yellow, orange, red, brown and black. It is not until about 4500 B.C that we first find evidence of the use of blue (in the so-called Halaf culture in Mesopotamia). In Egypt, malachite green was used as a pigment in cosmetics before the era of the dynasties. In the Egypt and Babylonia of 4000 B.C we find an increasing number of colors used in ceramics, architecture, paintings and sculpture. Around 3000-2500 B.C, the Sumarians established a culture in Babylonia that evidenced a wealth of colors. There, the splendid blue stone, lapis lazuli, as well as other minerals and precious stones, were used for ornamental purpose. The Phoenicians discovered the color purple, which they made from a kind of whelk, and used to dye their clothes. The Egyptians introduced the use of blue purple and violet.

The knowledge and use of color traveled across Crete to Greece around 1600-1400 B.C. The use of contrasting combinations, such as yellow and light blue or red and blue, appears in the Golden Age of Greek culture between 600-400 B.C. The art of mixing colors to form new variations had long since been learned and the literature of the time offers a considerable selection of color names. When adopted by the Romans, these names formed the basis of the development of color names in most European languages.