European Heritage Days 2019: Colours

Colour is omnipresent. It pleases or displeases, it calms, stimulates or irritates. The fact that colour has a strong effect on people makes it a central element in the design of things. While today all colours can be produced synthetically, in antiquity or the Middle Ages they were bound to naturally available pigments. The scarcer the pigments, the more valuable and noble the color: for example, thousands of purple snails were needed to produce one gram of pure purple. Correspondingly precious, purple was expensive for centuries and became the color of the rulers. This is just one example of the historical and cultural significance of colours.
Not only what colours mean changes over time, but also how they are produced and used or how they can be preserved. Beyond their symbolism, colours therefore also tell the history of technology, industry, craftsmanship and fashion. After all, there is a natural colourfulness that characterises townscapes and landscapes. It tells the observer something about the climate of a place, about the seasons or the mineral resources available in the region. We intuitively use natural colours to orient ourselves in space and time. These and all other facets of colour can be shown wonderfully in the architectural and archaeological heritage.