#I personally have absolutely no issue against either gold or red ichor but golden one does look better imo

[lyculuscaelus]

So I keep seeing the discussion of ichor’s color around, which is agreed by almost everyone that it’s golden, but it’s still weird no one has provided a source for reference. So if any of you can help with that, please tell me the source material and quote the corresponding lines; and if you cannot—here’s something I have found, just for your information:

When it comes to ichor, it’s only natural to refer to this part in book 5 of the Iliad, where Aphrodite was wounded by Diomedes (line 339–342):

… ῥέε δ᾽ ἄμβροτον αἷμα θεοῖο ἰχώρ, οἷός πέρ τε ῥέει μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν: οὐ γὰρ σῖτον ἔδουσ᾽, οὐ πίνουσ᾽ αἴθοπα οἶνον, τοὔνεκ᾽ ἀναίμονές εἰσι καὶ ἀθάνατοι καλέονται. The divine blood of the god (goddess) flowed out, The ichor, such as the kind that flows in all blessed gods— For they neither eat bread, nor drink fiery wine, Therefore they are bloodless, and are called immortals.

But I fail to find a more explicit description in the rest of the book, and even here the color is not described. All you know is that it’s not blood, but it functions like it. So maybe the color isn’t really specified in Homer’s time? I’m not sure…

So then I begin to wonder which god other than Aphrodite and Ares got was known to have bled. Naturally, Prometheus came to mind (thank you @simugeuge for suggesting this). So while I looked up Hesiod’s Works and Days and didn’t find any description either, an interesting part in Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica got my attention (book 3, line 851–853):

πρωτοφυὲς τόγ᾽ ἀνέσχε καταστάξαντος ἔραζε  αἰετοῦ ὠμηστέω κνημοῖς ἔνι Καυκασίοισιν  αἱματόεντ᾽ ἰχῶρα Προμηθῆος μογεροῖο. The first-born (of the herb) sprouted from the blood-red ichor of Prometheus in distress, dripping to the ground by the flesh-eating eagle, on the cliffs of Caucasus. (frick Apollonius Rhodius and his wild sequence of words)

Everything points to the word, αἱματόεντ’, or its nominative singular form, αἱματόεις, -όεσσα, -όεν. It is clear that this is αἱματο- (stem from αἷμα, “blood”) plus this set of endings of the adjective. So it’s something blood-like. Now, if you look up a dictionary, say, LSJ or Middle Liddell, you will find that it means “blood-red, or of blood” when describing colors. Which means, in Apollonius Rhodius’s account, the ichor is blood-red.

So, I still don’t know where exactly is ichor depicted as golden, but at least we now have one ancient Greek account that paints the ichor in red. Is that enough for reference? I don’t know.