Author: Bruce Bower / Source: Science News
Remnants of a rare pigment found in dental tartar of a woman buried around 1,000 years ago at a medieval monastery indicate that she may have been an elite scribe or book painter.
These pigment flecks come from ultramarine, a rare blue pigment made by grinding lapis lazuli stone imported from Afghanistan into powder, say archaeologist Anita Radini of the University of York in England and her colleagues. Elaborately illustrated religious manuscripts produced during Europe’s Middle Ages, from around 1,600 to 500 years ago, were sometimes decorated with rare and expensive materials, including ultramarine and gold leaf. The new discovery, reported January 9 in Science Advances, supports recent historical research suggesting that it wasn’t…
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