Phoenix Public Library: The History of Red – Cochineal

When archaeologists uncovered the ancient frescoes in the pre-Columbian buildings in Mitla in Oaxaca, they found well-preserved images bursting with bright red color. The early Zapotecs who made those pictures painted them with carmine dye, which they made from the ground-up bodies of the cochineal insect. This talk looks at the history of this dye, and how it shaped the history of the colonization of the Americas.     This program is for age 18 and up.