Turquoise
- HEX
- #40E0D0
- RGB
- 64 224 208
- HSL
- 174° 72% 56%
- CMYK
- 71 0 7 12
Turquoise or Aqua?
Greener and a little deeper than aqua.
Language
Turquoise means Turkish. The stone came from mines in Persia and reached Europe through Turkish lands, so the French called it the Turkish stone, though none was mined in Turkey.
History
Ancient Egyptians sent expeditions to the Sinai for turquoise. At the mines of Serabit el-Khadim they built a temple to Hathor, who was called the lady of turquoise. Half a world away, Aztec artisans covered masks, and at least one human skull, in turquoise mosaic.
Science
Turquoise is a copper mineral, like malachite, and copper gives it the sky color. A little iron in the mix pushes it greener.
Art
The Maya made a turquoise-blue paint that has survived centuries of jungle damp. Maya blue is indigo locked inside a rare clay, palygorskite. For a long time people assumed a blue-green that refused to fade must be a metal pigment; how it really works was pinned down only around 2000.
Kin
- Malachite: Another stone colored by copper, prized in ancient Egypt
- Azure: Persia's other famous blue stone, lapis lazuli, gave us azure
- Teal: Named after a duck's eye patch of nearly the same blue-green
Sources
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Turquoise in Ancient Egypt'
- British Museum, turquoise mosaic mask of Tezcatlipoca
- Etymonline, 'turquoise'
- Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette (2002)
- Balfour-Paul, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans (2011)
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.