Colour Symbolism in Ancient Mesopotamia | Hacker News Reader

Colour Symbolism in Ancient Mesopotamia

academia.edu

35 pointsbenbreen6 comments

Related: The Wine-Dark Sea: Color and Perception in the Ancient World by Erin Hoffman [1]. Extract:

"We may never know for sure, but one peculiar fact casts the mystery in an interesting light: there is no word for “blue” in ancient Greek. Homer’s descriptions of color in The Iliad and The Odyssey, taken literally, paint an almost psychedelic landscape: in addition to the sea, sheep were also the color of wine; honey was green, as were the fear-filled faces of men; and the sky is often described as bronze."

Edit: Interestingly, Russian appears not to have a single word for blue [1]. Instead, light blue and dark blue are thought of as separate colours.

[1] http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/hoffman_01_13/

[2] http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.full

With regard to Homeric interpretation of colour, i found this interesting.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bodysphere/feat...

Some of the comments are interesting as well, such as that Homer might have been blind.

Kind of like the fuzzy areas in between what we call red, dark red, light red, bright red, dull red, and pink (and bright pink and light pink and dark pink and dull pink).

It all becomes very subjective.

Not only do different cultures apply different meanings to colors, they may perceive them entirely differently than how you do. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl7cgh_horizon-do-you-see-w...

That was one the most impressive documentaries I'd ever seen.

Makes trying to understand consensus reality a real mind-bender.

Also tangentially related to light and colo[u]r perception and how dramatic it's effects can be:

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm (Search for "Phase response curve (PRC)") https://justgetflux.com/

Tried downloading the PDF and man... fuck everything about that intrusive piece of shit website.

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