There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids. Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and oriented, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow. The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly built pyramid was to achieve absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would live forever... or at least, never actually die. The time that would have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyrmaid and allowed to flare off once every twentyfour hours. After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by (a) ritual, (b) pickling people and (c) storing their soft inner bits in jars. This seldom works. And so the art of pyramid tuning was lost, and all the knowledge became a handful of misunderstood rules and hazy recollections. The ancients were far too wise to build very big pyramids. They could cause very strange things, things that would make meer fluctuations in time look tiny by comparison. By the way, contrary to popular opinion pyramids don't sharpen razor blades. They just take them back in time to when they weren't blunt. This is probably because of 'quantum.'
Terry Pratchett, 'Pyramids' - 1989.

Colour (Ancient Egyptian name 'iwen') was considered an integral part of an item's or person's nature in Ancient Egypt, and the term could interchangeably mean colour, appearance, character, being, or nature. Items with similar colour were believed to have similar properties.

Colours were often paired: silver and gold were considered complementary colours (i.e. they formed a duality of opposites just like the sun and moon). Red complemented white (think of the double crown Ancient Egypt), and green and black represented different aspects of the process of regeneration. Where a procession of figures is depicted, the skin tones alternate between light and dark ochre.

Purity of colour was important to Ancient Egyptians and the artist would usually complete everything in one colour before moving on to the next. Paintings would be finished off with fine brushwork to outline the work and add limited interior detail. The degree to which Ancient Egyptian artists and craftsmen mixed colours varied according to dynasty. However, even at its most creative, colour mixing was not widely spread. Unlike today's pigments which give consistent results, several of those available to Ancient Egyptian artists could react chemically with each other, for example lead white when mixed with orpiment (yellow) actually produces black.

Green (Ancient Egyptian name 'wahdj') was the colour of fresh growth, vegetation, new life, and resurrection (the latter along with the colour black). NOTE: The hieroglyph for 'green' is a papyrus stem and frond. Green was the colour of the 'Eye of Horus', or 'Wedjat,' (and not the usual blue that is depicted in ancient Egyptian art). The blue colouring is actually turquoise which has more copper sulphides i.e. 'green' properties than blue. Green had healing and protective powers, and so the colour also represented well- being. To do 'green things' was to do behave in a positive, life affirming manner. When written with the determinative for minerals (three grains of sand) 'wahdj' becomes the word for malachite, a color which represented joy. As with blue, the Ancient Egyptians could also manufacture a green pigment – verdigris (Ancient Egyptian name 'hes-byah' – which actually means copper or bronze dross (rust). Unfortunately, verdigris reacts with sulphides, such as the yellow pigment orpiment, and turns black. (Mediaeval artists would use a special glaze over the top of verdigris to protect it).

Turquoise (Ancient Egyptian name 'mefkhat'), a particularly valued green-blue stone from the Sinai, also represented joy, as well as the colour of the sun's rays at dawn. Through the deity Hathor, the Lady of Turquoise, who controlled the destiny of new-born babies, it can be considered a colour of promise and foretelling. Turquoise was one of the most versatile stones that was used in ancient Egypt. It was used primarily pigment in dye for gaze and paints and readily used for jewellry. Turquoise was found mainly in Sinai, at Wadi Magharah and Serabit el Khadim, where the stone occurs in seams in the sandstone rock. The stones from these two main sources are typically a light blue but can also be a greenish-blue. Turquoise was used in Egypt as early as the Neolithic and predynastic periods.

Black (Ancient Egyptian name 'kem') was the colour of the life-giving silt left by the Nile inundation, which gave rise to the Ancient Egyptian name for the country: 'kemet' – the black land. Black symbolized fertility, new life, and resurrection as seen through the yearly agricultural cycle. It was also the colour of Osiris ('the black one'), the resurrected god of the dead, and was considered the colour of the underworld where the sun was said to regenerate every night. Black was often used on statues and coffins to invoke the process of regeneration ascribed to the god Osiris. Black was also used as a standard colour for hair and to represent the skin colour of people from the south – Nubians and Kushites.

White (Ancient Egyptian name 'hedj') was the colour of purity, sacredness, cleanliness, and simplicity. Some tools, sacred objects, and even priest's sandals were white for this reason. Sacred animals were also depicted as white. Clothing, which was often just undyed linen, was usually depicted as white. White, as opposed to black, was also used as mourning wear in ancient Egypt.

Silver (also known by the name 'hedj', but written with the determinative for precious metal and 'aqsur' (MK) similar to the Arabic name for Luxor - El Aksur, meaning 'the castles') represented the colour of the sun at dawn, the moon, and stars. Silver was a rarer metal than gold in Ancient Egypt and held a greater value. It was sacred to the god Khons and to Hedj-wr, an Ancient Egyptian baboon god. Upon his death, Psuesennes I, pharaoh during Egypt's 21st Dynasty was placed inside a silver coffin, inlaid with gold, representing a vast amount of wealth during a time at which the empire was in decline.

Blue (Ancient Egyptian name 'irtyu') was the colour of the heavens, the dominion of the gods, as well as the colour of water, the yearly inundation, and the primeval flood. Although Ancient Egyptians favoured semi-precious stones such as azurite (Ancient Egyptian name 'tefer') and lapis lazuli (Ancient Egyptian name 'khesbedj', imported at great cost across the Sinai Desert from Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush) for jewellery and inlay; technology was advanced enough to produce the world's first synthetic pigment, known since medieval times as Egyptian blue but widely used in ancient times. Depending on the degree to which the pigment Egyptian blue was ground, the colour could vary from a rich, dark blue (coarse) to a pale, ethereal blue (very fine). Blue was used for the hair of gods (specifically lapis lazuli, or the darkest of Egyptian blues) and for the face of the god Amun – a practice which was extended to those pharaohs associated with him.

Yellow (Ancient Egyptian name 'khenet') was the colour of women's skin, as well as the skin of people who lived near the Mediterranean - Libyans, Bedouin, Syrians, and Hittites. Yellow was also the colour of the sun and, along with gold, represented perfection. As with blue and green, the Ancient Egyptians produced a synthetic yellow – lead antimonate – its Ancient Egyptian name, however, is unknown. When looking at Ancient Egyptian art today it can be difficult to distinguish between lead antimonate, (which is a pale yellow), lead white (which is very slightly yellow but can darken over time) and orpiment (a relatively strong yellow which fades in direct sunlight). This has lead some art historians to believe white and yellow were interchangeable. The colour of terra-cotta or salmon skin colours used in ancient Egyptian art, which we consider to be an orange colour today, would have been classed as yellow. (The term orange didn't come into use until the fruit arrived in Europe from China in medieval times – even Cennini writing in the 15th century describes it as a yellow). The poisonous yellow pigment orpiment (arsenic sulfide) was also used and was prepared by grinding the naturally occuring mineral.

Gold (Ancient Egyptian name 'nub') represented the flesh of the gods and was used for anything which was considered eternal or indestructible. (Gold was used on a sarcophagus, for example, because the pharaoh had become a god.) Whilst gold leaf could be used on sculpture, yellow or reddish-yellows were used in paintings for the skin of gods. (Note that some gods were also painted with blue, green, or black skin). The word 'nub' is taken from 'Nubia,' the main source for gold with it's extensive mines.

Red (Ancient Egyptian name 'deshr') was primarily the colour of chaos and disorder, – the colour of the desert (Ancient Egyptian name 'deshret', the red land) which was considered the opposite of the fertile black land ('kemet'). One of the principal red pigments, red ochre, was obtained from the desert. (The hieroglyph for red is the hermit ibis, a bird which, unlike the other ibis of Egypt, lives in dry areas and eats insects and small creatures). Red was also the colour of destructive fire and fury, and was used to represent something dangerous and was associated with authority. Through its relation to the desert, red became the colour of the god Set, the traditional god of chaos, and was associated with death – the desert was a place where people were exiled or sent to work in mines. The desert was also regarded as the entrance to the underworld where the sun disappeared each night. As chaos, red was considered the opposite to the colour white. In terms of death it was the opposite of green and black. However, this most potent of all colours in Ancient Egypt, was also a colour of life and protection – derived from the colour of blood and the life-supporting power of fire. It was therefore commonly used for protective amulets, more often displayed in the hieroglyph for the heart.
Source: A. Evans - Colour in African Art. ISBN: 1856793719

Blue scarab - a special gift from Xena Apilsin.