At several places within the Temple of Dendera the colors from antiquity were visible. Here you can see the remains of a bluish pigment on the ceiling. The ancient Egyptians used two blues. One is the Egyptian blue frit described in an earlier blog entry and the other azurite. It is impossible to tell which was used here without analyzing a fragment of the pigment. I suspect because the blue does not seem to be of a greenish cast it most likely is Egyptian Blue. Most azurite pigments I have seen have a definite blue/green appearance.
Does anyone have any specific information on this?
Fortunately these pigments are available, and I am using both in my experiments.
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