A Spooky Secret in the Art Box!

Kabir: Isha! You have to see this. I’m doing research for my art history project, and I found the weirdest name for a paint colour. It’s called… ‘Mummy Brown’.

Isha: Oh, I’ve heard of that! It’s a super fascinating and kind of creepy story.

Kabir: Wait, so you know what it is? The name is just a coincidence, right? It’s not actually made from… you know… mummies?

Isha: Brace yourself, Kabir. It was absolutely, 100% made from real, ancient Egyptian mummies.

Kabir: No way! Eww, that’s so gross! Why would anyone do that? And how do you even turn a mummy into paint? This sounds like a story from a horror movie, not an art class!

Isha: I know, it sounds crazy today, but it’s true! It was a very popular pigment for hundreds of years, from around the 1500s all the way into the early 1900s. It all started because of something called ‘Egyptomania’.

Kabir: Egypt-o-what-now?

Isha: Egyptomania! It was a period when people in Europe became obsessed with all things from ancient Egypt. Explorers were bringing back artifacts, statues, and yes, even mummies. Back then, people didn't have the same respect for ancient remains as we do today. Mummies were sometimes ground up and used in strange medicines, and someone, somewhere, discovered another use for them.

Kabir: As paint? How does that even work?

Isha: Well, the ancient Egyptians used natural resins, like tree sap, and a black, tar-like substance called bitumen to preserve and wrap the bodies. When you grind up the mummy’s wrapped remains, these materials mix together. They discovered that this powder, when mixed with oil, created a beautiful, rich, and transparent brown colour. Artists loved it because it was perfect for creating shadows, glazing, and painting realistic skin tones. The colour was unique and couldn't be easily copied with other materials.

Kabir: So famous artists actually had ground-up ancient people on their paint palettes? Did they know what they were using?

Isha: That’s the most interesting part! At first, many probably just knew it as ‘Mummy Brown’ and didn’t think too hard about the name. But as time went on, the truth became more widely known. There’s a famous story about a group of British painters called the Pre-Raphaelites. One of them, a man named Edward Burne-Jones, loved using Mummy Brown. It was one of his favourite colours.

Kabir: What happened to him?

Isha: One day, a fellow artist, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, came to visit him in his studio while he was painting. Alma-Tadema was also a fan of ancient history and knew a lot about Egypt. He asked Burne-Jones what that lovely brown colour was, and when Burne-Jones told him, Alma-Tadema revealed its gruesome secret. He explained, in detail, that the paint was made from the actual ground-up bodies of pharaohs and their people.

Kabir: Whoa! What did the artist do?

Isha: He was completely horrified! The story goes that he immediately rushed to his studio, picked up his tube of Mummy Brown paint, and took it out into the garden. He felt so bad that he gave it a proper burial right there on his lawn. He never used the colour again.

Kabir: That’s incredible! A funeral for a tube of paint! So, is that why we don’t have Mummy Brown today? Because artists found out and got grossed out?

Isha: That was a big part of it! As artists and the general public became more aware and ethically concerned, the demand for the paint dropped. Also, the quality was very inconsistent. You never knew what you were getting! Some mummies were thousands of years old, some were more recent. Some were even fakes made from more recently deceased people to sell to the paint-makers. And eventually, the supply of actual ancient mummies started to run out. The last company making it officially announced they had ‘run out of mummies’ in 1964!

Kabir: Wow. That’s one of the weirdest stories I’ve ever heard. A colour with a dark secret.

So, What Did We Learn Today?

Isha: It really shows how science, history, and art can be connected in the most unexpected ways! Let’s break it down:

  • A real paint colour called Mummy Brown was used by artists for over 400 years.
  • It was made from the ground-up remains of real ancient Egyptian mummies, both human and cat.
  • The unique pigment came from the mix of bitumen and resins used in the mummification process.
  • Artists loved its rich, transparent quality, which was ideal for painting shadows and skin.
  • The paint fell out of fashion as artists learned of its gruesome origin, and the supply of mummies began to dwindle.
  • Today, we have a much greater respect for historical artifacts and human remains, so something like this would never happen.

Kabir: Definitely! I think I’ll stick to ‘Burnt Sienna’ for my project. It sounds much less spooky! But my art report is definitely going to be the most interesting one in the class now. Thanks, Isha!