51. kyanos. From the context this would appear to be the natural fyanos, blue copper carbonate, which Theophrastus has mentioned before in section 39. It was rarely used as a coloring material, so far as this can be decided by the examination of pigments found on ancient Greek objects. Thus the archaeological evidence confirms the remark of Theophrastus about the scarcity of the pigment. An artificial calcium copper silicate was much more widely used as a blue pigment by die Greeks. Detailed information about the blue pigments included under die name fyanos is given in the notes on section 55.
51. yellow ochre can ta\e the place of orpiment, since there is no real difference in their color, though there seems to be.
Though both are yellow pigments, orpiment is actually more brilliant in tone than yellow ochre. Since no Greek portraits of the time of Theophrastus have survived, it cannot now be determined to what extent yellow ochre was used instead of die more brilliant orpiment. Probably it was used to a much greater extent, if one may judge from die pigments found on Egyptian and Roman mural paintings. Pliny385 names Polygnotus and Micon as the first artists to use yellow ochre, and adds that they used only Attic ochre, diough dieir successors used other kinds as well.
52. But in some places there are mines that even contain both red ochre and yellow ochre together, as for example in Cappadocia.
Red ochre and yellow ochre often occur together as well as in separate deposits. Modern geological surveys show that iron oxide minerals of various sorts are still to be found in considerable quantities widiin die limits of ancient Cappadocia in central Asia Minor.386
385 XXXIII, 160.
386 Schmeiszer, Zeitschrift fiir pra\tische Geologie, XIV (1906), 190.
