Pompeii has been in the news again in recent days due to the discovery of a peculiar blue-painted room. What makes it peculiar? Precisely because the Romans did not usually paint the walls blue or use this color for anything other than very specific purposes.
Experts believe that this room must have had some kind of religious use and could have been a sanctuary or a storage area for sacred objects, as amphorae and bronze objects have been found in it. The walls are decorated with female figures representing the four seasons, agriculture, and shepherding.
An unusual color
The Romans did not usually use the color blue, and in fact, they did not have a word for this color as such, but several like caeruleus (sky blue), venetus (navy blue) or cyaneus (cyan, which is actually a shade between blue and green). The reasons for this are several.
The first is practical. Romans only knew how to obtain the color blue from certain plants or minerals that could only be obtained at the limits of their territory and often through intermediaries, like the Persians. This made the pigment extremely expensive, so it was out of reach for many.
Discover an unusual blue room and a carpenter’s tools in Pompeii
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The second is cultural. The color blue (specifically dark blue) was associated with the underworld and, therefore, was a bad omen. It was not usually used in clothing, except on solemn occasions like ceremonies and funerals, and it was also very difficult to fix on fabric with the methods of the time. The fact that the tribes of northern Europe (especially the Picts of Scotland) used this color to paint their bodies also did not help its popularity, as it was associated with barbarians.
There was one exception for practical reasons: ship sails and crew clothing were usually blue, and sometimes even the ship was painted. This helped them blend in better, which on one hand served to deceive pirates and on the other hand to surprise enemy ships if it was a war fleet.
