Everything about Caput Mortuum totally explained
Caput Mortuum is a
Latin term meaning 'death's head'. In
alchemy,
Caput Mortuum signified a useless substance left over from a chemical operation such as
sublimation; alchemists represented this residue with a stylized human skull, a literal death's head. In its current limited usage, the
caput mortuum represents decline and
entropy.
Pigment
Caput mortuum (variously spelled
caput mortum or
caput mortem) also known as
Cardinal purple is the name given to a purple variety of
haematite iron oxide pigment, used in
oil paints and paper
dyes. It was a very popular colour for painting the robes of religious figures and important personages (for example art patrons).
The name for this pigment may have come from the alchemical usage, since iron oxide (rust) is the useless residue of oxidization. It was originally a byproduct of
sulfuric acid manufacture during the 17th & 18th centuries, and was possibly an early form of the
copperas process used for the manufacture of
Venetian red and
copperas red
Caput mortuum is also sometimes used as an alternative name for
Mummy brown (alternatively,
Egyptian brown), a pigment that was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from ground-up
mummies, and whose use was discontinued in the 19th century when artists became aware of its ingredients.
Popular culture
In the
Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game,
Caput Mortuum is a legacy weapon; it's a grim, somber-looking
scythe with a haft of wood charred so badly that it resembles little more than charcoal. The blade is made of lusterless gray metal and is wholly unadorned, except for a lone glyph engraved on each side - a circle with three small dots arranged in a "V" shape.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Caput Mortuum'.
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