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.^[1]

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 (e.g. 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^[2]

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is also sometimes used as an alternative name for Mummy brown (alternatively, Egyptian brown), a pigment that was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from ground-up mummies, and whose use was discontinued in the 19th century when artists became aware of its ingredients.^[3]

Popular culture

In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Caput Mortuum is a legacy weapon; it is 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.^[4]

See also

• Mummy brown

Notes

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Caput mortuum". Image Credit.

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