Seeing Blue

It seems that people could literally not see the color blue until "modern times," as one source phrased it.  It was William Gladstone, Britain's four-time Prime Minister, who started something when, as a Homer scholar, he realized that Homer referred not to a blue sea but to a "wine-dark sea" ... as well as to violet sheep and green honey.  Was he (and were all the ancient Greeks) color blind, Gladstone wondered?  So he made a count.  There were plenty of references in both The Iliad and The Odyssey to black and white, a fair amount to red, barely any to yellow and green, and none to blue.

Others taking up the study found that none of the ancient texts--the old Icelandic sagas, the Indian vedas, the Bible, Japanese and Chinese writings--mentioned the color blue.  Only the Egyptians because it seemed they made a dye which was blue.  But, as the researchers pointed out, other than the very obvious blue sky and blue water, there are no blue plants, animals, people, foods, hair.  Sky and water was passed off as being white or wine-dark or dawn/sunset red.  As it turned out, too, the introduction of words of color into these languages all came in the same order:  black, white, red, yellow, green, and lastly, blue.  The researchers suggested that until a culture could make something which was that color (such as the Egyptians with their dye), they may not have been able to distinguish the color.

Interestingly, in a recent study, a researcher found that the Himba tribe in Namibia cannot see a blue spot in a wheel of otherwise green spots.  But ... but ... we can't see a slightly different green spot (in a wheel of otherwise all green spots) that they can point out with ease.

For more, or if you want to try picking out the green spot, see:http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2

How's that for a deep blue sky!