sources of yellow ochre, to which he gives the name sil, but states that the Attic mineral was the best. On the other hand, though Vitruvius382 also names Attic ochre as the best, he states that it was not obtainable, and implies that this was because the Laurion mines were no longer in operation. Some yellow as well as red ochre can still be found at Laurion in the ancient mining district, and very good specimens have been collected in the modern workings. There are indications of old workings of iron minerals in various parts of Attica.383 Yellow ochre also occurs elsewhere in Greece and on several of the Aegean islands. Pliny shows that it was mined in Greece outside Attica in ancient times; he names the island of Scyros as well as the province of Achaia as sources of a dark variety of yellow ochre.
Though modern excavation has shown that yellow ochre was less commonly used by the ancient Greeks than red ochre, it is clear that it was more extensively used than most of the other kinds of pigments. It was certainly the only yellow pigment that was in common use.
51. chrysokolla. As was explained in the notes on section 26, this was a general name denoting any bright-green copper mineral that occurred as an earthy incrustation. It is clear from its inclusion here among the coloring materials that the ancient chryso\olla was used as a pigment and not solely as a "gold-glue," as its name suggests. There is definite archaeological evidence that the natural green copper carbonate known as malachite was used by die Greeks as a pigment. For example, Midgley384 demonstrated that malachite was the green coloring material on a terra cotta object of the fourth century b.c. found in the excavations at Athens. It is likely that natural copper silicate, the modern chrysocolla, was also used as a green pigment, although this mineral has not actually been found among the Greek pigments that have been chemically investigated. On the whole, the rather marked scarcity of green copper pigments on ancient Greek objects tends to show that they were not much used as coloring materials by the Greeks.
382 VII, 7, 1.
883 Davies, Roman Mines in Europe, p. 252.
38* "Chemical Analysis of Ancient Athenian Pigments," p. 25.
