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Oldest eyeliner pencil in the world found in Turkey
A stone pencil used to apply kohl 8,200 years ago has been discovered at the Yeşilova Mound in İzmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey. It is the oldest eyeliner pencil ever found.
The stone is 9.5 cm (3.7 inches) long and tapers to a sharpened tip. There is black paint residue on the pointed end. Women dipped them in pot filled with black paint and applied the fine end to their eyelids. Stones with paint at the tip like this one have been found before in Syria, Iran and Turkey, but the oldest of them date back 4,000 years.
Analysis of the chemical composition of the paint on the pencil identified it as containing manganese oxide, one of the ingredients in the powdered kohl used by women on their eyes and brows from prehistory to the present day. Kohl recipes have proven surprisingly diverse. Studies of Egyptian cosmetics have found lead, carbon and silicon-based preparations as well as the manganese-based variety.
The manganese oxide in the kohl was derived from manganite, a dark grey or black mineral that was used as a fire starter by the Neanderthals 60,000 years ago and by the early modern humans of the Upper Paleolithic to make cave art. The oldest lip color in the world (dating to the 3rd millennium B.C.), found in southern Iran in 2001, was prepared using hematite (iron oxide) for the red base that was darkened by manganite.
Excavations at the Yeşilova Mound have been ongoing since 2005, revealing the earliest layers of occupation in the Neolithic around 8,500 years ago. That means the eyeliner was present practically from the earliest days of the settlement.
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