These are examples of Egyptian paint pigments.

They are from Thebes. The Egyptian artist had a limited range of colours to work with. The colours he used came mostly from natural earth pigments. Red came from oxides or realgar, blue from azurite or from a mixture of pigments and quartz known to us as Egyptian blue. The artist had to prepare his own paints by grinding the pigments to powder and mixing them with a binder such as plant gum or animal glue. These are examples of Egyptian paint pigments. They are made from earth minerals. We do not know how old these objects are.