Blue skinned mummies and the Royal Blue Bloodline

a reply to: Harte

What's your problem? I gave the guy a pertinent suggestion, no need to be an asshole for no apparent reason.

a reply to: TheLaughingGod
So, you're saying that what I said wasn't funny?

Sheesh! Everyone's a critic!

Harte

Been awhile since I posted, but this thread was really intriguing! S&F, OP.

I found it interesting that no one brought up the parallel of the significance of blue for the ancient Mayan culture.

Blue was the color associated with their rain deities, especially Chaahk. Human sacrifices to the god were covered in blue paint, specifically Maya Blue, a combo of indigo, tree resin, and clay which was prepared in such a way as to make it essentially a "new" chemical compound of such lasting permanence that even most modern acids are ineffectual in removing it.

If by chance, the chosen one survived the sacrificial ritual of being thrown alive into a cenote, then that individual would be announced as a "messenger from the gpds " and honored for the rest of their life.

Not trying to draw any conclusions here, yet in light of the seemingly universal association of blue with gods and the ruling elite in multiple diverse cultures throughout time and history, the fact that a PanAmerican civilization prior to outside contact from any European intervention would view the color with a similiar significance is interesting to say the least.



Source

originally posted by: ladyjem
Not trying to draw any conclusions here, yet in light of the seemingly universal association of blue with gods and the ruling elite in multiple diverse cultures throughout time and history, the fact that a PanAmerican civilization prior to outside contact from any European intervention would view the color with a similiar significance is interesting to say the least.
Source

The sky, a mystery to all ancient cultures, is blue. There you have it.

Harte

a reply to: Harte
Thank you for an explanation of an obvious fact, yet the sky is black half the time as well, so if ancient cultures were seeking to honor or emulate sky gods, it would seem quite as reasonable for them to portray their deities and the ruling elite (earthly extensions of the gods) with ebony skin tones, a pigment surely more easily obtainable through means of soot or charcoal, in equal measure.

With the exceptions of Krishna, Aset (the African Isis), Min, the Egyptian god of fertility, Osiris & Geb, the Egyptian gods of death & vegetation (although sometimes both were portrayed as green skinned), & Anpu (Anubis, the jackal headed gpd of mummification & the underworld), there doesn't seem to be a plethora of black skinned deities, so perhaps, in the context of the OP, the color blue is more symbolic of the rarity or difficulty (hence value) in obtaining or creating the pigment than it is representative of the great mysterious blue sky.

a reply to: Indigent

Thank you for that. My musical horizon just expanded a little. You a banjo player? Can you teach me? I play guitar.

*

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

The American Hindu Society (really) has this to say about blue-skinned Krishnas, et al.

The depiction of some Gods as blue toned is an example of the importance of symbolism in Hinduism. Blue, the color of the sky, represents the limitlessness of the sky and universe. Blue is also the color of water, which is life-sustaining. Swami Chinmayanada, a spiritual leader, explained that the human eye sees that which is infinite as blue so the blue tone serves as a reminder of the Divine’s infiniteness.

Speaking as someone with a bit less cultural distance from the source than most ATSers, I'd say this explanation is disarmingly post hoc. Doesn't account for blue Egyptian people either.

How would you research this?

How could human skin acquire a blue pigment? We know some of the ways, such as an appetite for salts of silver and that unpronounceable congenital condition they were talking about earlier. Apart from good old paint, what other ways exist?

Finding out might be one lead to an answer.

Blue is a hard colour for living organisms to attain. Many do, of course, but they do it through the preferential alignment on refractive surface cells, as in a butterfuly's wing. No pigments are involved.

Could human skin be made to look blue in some such way? The metals involved in blue pigmentation — silver, copper and cobalt — are all more or less toxic, which probably rules them out.

What if one of the extinct contributors to the HSS genotype — Neanderthals, Denisovans, ??ans — had blue, or bluish skin?

Nah, too farfetched. It was paint.

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

Except, of course, that the conventional alien is either grey — or green, as in the old science-fiction convention of LGMs or Little Green Men.

Pfrrt.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

Except, of course, that the conventional alien is either grey — or green, as in the old science-fiction convention of LGMs or Little Green Men.

There are blue aliens also, I went into this earlier:

originally posted by: MerkabaMeditation
I'm sorry to bring in the "It was Aliens" perspective once again, but could these (see picture below) blue "gods" be the root cause of all these ancient traditions? This is exactly how ET's look like - or at least one of the extraterrestial races - according to some (*cough*) 3rd degree contacts. These ET's do have a blue skin coloration just like the ancient gods did.

This ATS thread may also interest you:

ATS: Blue aliens by the bed

-MM

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Excellent points.
Isn't it likely then that the dyes in their clothing and bedding would become embedded in their skin?
Especially if they were to sweat against it.
Bathing was a rare affair too, likely leaving the dyes in place.
Or does such a simple explanation take the fun out of a subject?

I also think the metaphorical connection of the color of the sky and ocean being controlled by the Gods was another reason the elites would have liked being the color blue.

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

There are aliens of every colour of the rainbow. Or rather, there aren't, but people have imagined them existing.

You can't tell me about aliens. I'm a lifelong science-fiction fan, and I mean science-fiction, not sci-fi. I've met aliens from tenuous energy beings millions of miles wide and barely thicker than a vacuum (Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud, Arthur C. Clarke's The Wind from the Sun to bug-eyed monsters of every variety and description. You should try the bad-acid aliens of Roger Zelazny's Amber novels if you like colourful ones.

I never met blue aliens standing by my bed, but then, I don't drink so much.

originally posted by: ladyjem
a reply to: Harte
Thank you for an explanation of an obvious fact, yet the sky is black half the time as well, so if ancient cultures were seeking to honor or emulate sky gods, it would seem quite as reasonable for them to portray their deities and the ruling elite (earthly extensions of the gods) with ebony skin tones, a pigment surely more easily obtainable through means of soot or charcoal, in equal measure.

That would have left those beautiful sparkly things unexplained. So they used the stars rather than the black background to represent their gods.

However, when the sky is blue, the stars are gone.

Harte

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

The skin thing....a latin woman who is not as brown is of a higher perceived social status, as she didn't have to work the fields. A woman who works the fields is dark bronze.

That isn't Latin. That's universal.

Personal taste may vary (I share yours), but I know of no place on Earth where it is culturally normative that dark skins are preferred to fair ones. The preference for fair skins is ultimately male, and sexual. All over the world, fair-skinned women are thought more attractive than darker-hued ones. Since attractive women usually marry 'up', this explains why the ruling classes are generally fairer-skinned than the peasantry. More fundamentally, it also explains why, regardless of ethnicity, women are, on average, fairer-skinned than men.

Would you make love to a blue woman? I'm not sure I could.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Excellent points.
Isn't it likely then that the dyes in their clothing and bedding would become embedded in their skin?

Well, I'm no expert in blue dyes, and though I suppose some colours could bleed or leave marks on the skin, Krishna and Ganesh would have to be wearing unfixed blue burkas for a pretty long time to get as blue as they. The different names for blue jeans like Denim and Dungaree are in fact names of places in India where they had perfected the process of producing the particular blue dyes used by Levi's and the others.

Especially if they were to sweat against it.
Bathing was a rare affair too, likely leaving the dyes in place.
Or does such a simple explanation take the fun out of a subject?

I also think the metaphorical connection of the color of the sky and ocean being controlled by the Gods was another reason the elites would have liked being the color blue.

Mm. But like gold means status today (and then) blue dyes were expensive and rare. A few hundred years back aluminium was the most expensive metal around, which made it highly popular with royalty and rich people who used them for cutlery and buttons on their jackets. It all comes down to fashion I believe.