#ancient civilisations: i love all my colours equally! we have black. white. red. yellow. and the other ones. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

grand-theft-carbohydrates · 3 months

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very tempted to add to the type of "wine-dark* sea" discourse on ancient colour names and call blue AND green by the same name. gonna start innocuous and say things that could be ambiguously green/blue like "the sky was as clear as jade", and then clothesline unsuspecting readers with "the blue grass and trees". the best part of writing is the PVP.

**my hot take is that red wine served in a clay (opaque) vessel would just look black, so it's describing a dark, stormy sea. source: i drink wine out of teacups.

#ancient civilisations: i love all my colours equally! we have black. white. red. yellow. and the other ones.#more than anything this has always been the one thing i found difficult to wrap my head around.#my earliest memories were meticulously cataloging different shades of colours and making up names for the ones i didn't know.#rip to 80% of human civilisation. but if i was a neolithic person i'd devote all my time to inventing and disseminating colour names.#hello neighbouring tribe have you heard of brozold? it's a combination of bronze and gold--stop shooting at me im not finished

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