Ochre

Ochre is a color, usually described as golden-yellow or light yellow brown. As a painting pigment it exists in at least three forms:

• yellow ochre, Fe₂O₃ • H₂O, a hydrated Iron oxide
• red ochre, Fe₂O₃, obtained by heating yellow ochre
• brown ochre (Goethite), also partly hydrated iron oxide (rust)

Ochre was one of the first pigments to be used by human beings. Pieces of hematite, worn as though they had been used as crayons, have been found at 300,000 year old Homo heidelbergensis sites in France and Czechoslovakia. Neanderthal burial sites sometimes include ochre as a grave good. The oldest evidence of mining activity, at the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland, is a 43,000 year old ochre mine.

Color Coordinates

See also

• clay earth pigment