color
Green
The color of new plants. Osiris’s green skin in some images, Islamic green, and ordinary leaf-green are different jobs.
Green is associated with Rebirth.
Green as new plant and green as Osiris’s restored face are easy to rhyme. The hymn of grain and the Egyptian dead should still be kept as two plots.
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Green is associated with Season.
A green season is a farmer’s fact. Festivals hung on that fact are local.
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Green is historically related to Black.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, prasinus is prepared as a green colour with black, dissolved in water and strained for use on a new wall.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Green is historically related to Lime.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, wall colours under lazur and green are mixed with lime so they dry into the wall and adhere.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Green is historically related to Wine.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, Spanish green for books is tempered with pure wine, with a little iris or cabbage sap added when shadows are wanted.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Leaf is associated with Green.
Green is the ordinary color-name of a living leaf. Festival greens and Osiris’s face are other jobs of the color.
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Jade is associated with Green.
Jade is often green in both China and Mesoamerica. Color is shared; the rites are not.
from Berthold Laufer · Jade, 1912; Karl A. Taube · The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion, 2005
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White is associated with Green.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, white and green are mixed to fill in a drapery, and more white may be added for fine touches over the first — white is mixed with that green.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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In Theophilus Divers Arts, a drapery mixes orpiment with indigo then lightens with more orpiment, forming a yellow-green compound that does not last on a wall.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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In Theophilus Divers Arts, Roman azure ground in water is mixed with orpiment to form a yellow green.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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In Theophilus On Divers Arts, flesh colour mixed from ceruse and cinnabar is made pallid by adding a little green in place of more cinnabar.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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In Theophilus On Divers Arts, a drapery is filled by mixing pure green with ochre so that the ochre predominates, then drawing with succus and red.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Rose is historically related to Green.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, youths’ beards are filled by mixing deep green and red with a little rose colour.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Saffron is historically related to Green.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, putting saffron into green makes a greenish yellow, and saffron or calcined-bone powder brightens green that has darkened in the pot.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Iris is historically related to Green.
In Theophilus’s Divers Arts, Spanish green for books is tempered with pure wine, and a little sap of iris is added when shadows are wanted.
from Theophilus Presbyter · On Divers Arts, c. early 12th century
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Cross is historically related to Green.
In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems, the cross was frequently represented literally as a tree and was occasionally painted of a green colour in subjects of the Passion and Crucifixion.
from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)
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Islam
Green is associated with Islam.
Green has been used in Islamic banners, tiles, and later national colors. That is a historical color-use, not Osiris’s funerary face and not leaf-theology.
from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation) · The Qur’an, 2004 (this translation); Arabic text 7th century CE
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Egyptian religion · Nile valley
Green appears in Nile valley.
Osiris’s green face is an Egyptian image of restored life. Keep it off Islamic green and off leaf-green.
from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE
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Egyptian religion
Green appears in Egyptian religion.
The Book of the Dead’s Osiris image-world seats green among restored-life colors of the justified dead. A named green in that corpus, not ordinary leaf-theology alone and not the osiris-green associated_with edge restated as tradition membership.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Green is sacred to Osiris.
Plutarch’s On Isis and Osiris seats green with Osiris and Nile vegetation — green as Osiris’s color of moisture and growth in that treatise. A named green–Osiris cult link under this source, not only green→nile-valley appears_in and not a represents twin of the same sentence.
from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE
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Osiris is associated with Green.
Some Egyptian images give Osiris a green face. Green here is a funerary color of restored life, not ordinary leaf-theology.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific
Egyptian Green represents Green.
The Book of the Dead’s regeneration and wadj speech keeps green as living color — Egyptian green pigment performs a green-color sign job in that funerary palette, not green→egyptian-religion color walk alone and not a bare malachite dump.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Roman religion
Green appears in Roman religion.
Pliny’s Natural History seats green among painter’s greens and green earths of Book 35. A named green hue in that encyclopedia, not terre-verte, malachite, or verdigris as named greens already walked.
from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE
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Nahua tradition
Green appears in Nahua tradition.
Sahagún’s Florentine Codex records green among jade-adjacent, plant, and directional color speech — named green in ritual palette ethnography. A colonial-era Nahua ethnographic attestation, not a pan-Mesoamerican essence and not an unfiltered pre-invasion voice.
from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577
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sources
- The Qur’an · M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation)
M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an (Oxford).
- On Isis and Osiris · Plutarch
Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris (Moralia).
- Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)
Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
- Natural History · Pliny the Elder
Pliny, Naturalis Historia.
- Florentine Codex · Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators
Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain (Florentine Codex).
- On Divers Arts · Theophilus Presbyter
Theophilus, On Divers Arts (De diversis artibus / Schedula diversarum artium).
- Jade · Berthold Laufer
Berthold Laufer, Jade: A Study in Chinese Archaeology and Religion.
- The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion · Karl A. Taube
Karl A. Taube, “The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion,” Ancient Mesoamerica 16 (2005).
- Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art · Louisa Twining
Louisa Twining, Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art.