From ancient times, we humans have been relying on minerals to make tools of many kinds. Even now, we still use many minerals to fulfill our daily needs. In this chapter, we will dig into this topic and learn what kinds of minerals affect our daily lives.

• Minerals used for art



From ages ago, minerals have been used for paint pigment and make up.

As a matter of fact, paint sold today are still using these minerals for pigment. Paint is made by mixing crushed minerals with glue as a fixative.

Some examples of minerals used for making paint are azurite for rich blue color, malachite for green color, cinnabar for red color, realgar for orange color, and orpiment for yellow color. By changing the size of the pigment you are able to change the thickness of the color.

There are some records where mineral based paint was used in Takamatsuduka tumulus in the 7-8 century.

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