Green

The Color Green


 * [[image:ethics7kgkgk.jpg width="201" height="184" align="left" caption="The goddess Ma'at"]]Egyptian Name:**

//Wadj//


 * Hieroglyphics:**



The ancient Egyptian concept of "green" covered all shades of the color, as well as some blues. To the ancient Egyptians, green was the color of vegetation and new life. To do "green things" was slang for beneficial, life-producing behavior. Green malachite was a symbol of joy, and the land of the blessed dead was described as the "field of malachite." In Egyptian statuary and jewelry green was represented by stones such as emerald, green jasper, faience, turquoise, peridot, olivine, green feldspar, serpentine, green glass, beryl, jade, chrysoprase, and green quartz. The pigment green was derived from malachite, a natural copper ore, or manufactured by mixing oxides of copper and iron with silica and calcium.

//Wadj//, the Egyptian word for green, meant "to flourish" or "be healthy," and was also used as the name for the papyrus plant. Amulets such as the Eye of Horus and the Papyrus Scepter were made of green stone, to help the dead be reborn like a flourishing papyrus. In Chapter 77 of the Book of the Dead, it is said that the deceased will become a falcon "whose wings are of green stone." In Egyptian texts, lucky days were written in green ink.

Fertility deities were often pictured as green, such as Hapi, Taweret, Wadjet, and Geb, who was known as //Wadj Wer// ("The Great Green.") Osiris, the King of the Afterlife, was often portrayed with green or black skin (when used to represent resurrection, black and green were sometimes interchangeable.) In the 26th Dynasty, coffin faces were often painted green to identify the deceased with Osiris and to guarantee rebirth. Priests drew the Feather of Ma’at on their tongues with green dye, so that the words they spoke were truth.

Egyptian Colors