THE COLOURS OF THE GOLDEN HOUSE

During recent excavations under the pavement of the Domus Aurea in Rome (the Emperor Nero's “Golden House”), archeologists found a cache of containers with pigments to create the colours that would have been used by artists like Famulus (also called Fabullus), the most important artist of Imperial Rome, and his assistants. Traces of their work are still visible on the walls of some of the rooms in the palace that Nero built as his private residence and which may have been one of the contributing factors of his downfall. After the fire that destroyed much of the city, malicious rumours went around that the emperor had allowed the fire to spread deliberately in order to clear more space for his palace and park.

The pigment tanks contained traces of realgar (ruby sulphur or arsenic sulphide), a mineral used to produce tones of red. The most exciting find, however, was an exceptionally large ingot of “Egyptian Blue” weighing 2.4 kgs. This pigment, used in art since the early Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia, is a man-made compound of silicone, limestone, copper and carbonate of soda, widely used in frescos and other decorative work. Expensive and considered precious, it is usually found in much small fragments or in powdered form.

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