Talk:Caput mortuum

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Stelio in topic Symbol

Merge edit

I agree that all should be merged, and the spelling that should be maintained, to which the others should all redirect, is Caput Mortuum.

That's the British spelling. Many contemporary oil painting color lines still include a Caput Mortuum, although it is no longer derived from the wrapping of Egyptian mummies, but is chemically similar and purer. This is a traditional old artist pigment, and I am afraid that the old and obsolete appearing name has to stick. Note that there is a tradition of capitalizing names of pigments in the color industries.

Also, if you don't spell this the way I am recommending, then the curse of the mummy will be upon you! --Metzenberg 00:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Symbol edit

A very similar symbol is used as the symbol for blindness in Germany and Austria. Blind people wear armbands like [this one], and "chirper" boxes for the blind at crosswalks have a symbol that looks even more like the Caput Mortuum: the three circles have a large ring around them. The armbands are talked about [here] and [here]. I've seen this, but I can't find any good primary sources about it. Are the symbols related, or is it just an unfortunate coincidence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.136.224.83 (talk) 00:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

You can see the alchemical symbol for Caput mortuum here; it is a very simple symbol so likely just a coincidence. Salmanazar (talk) 12:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

If it's not a coincidence, it would be unusually cruel toward blind people to associate them with a symbol for waste. I'm interested to know if this is a coincidence or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.138.155 (talk) 05:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

The German symbol is just three dots without a circle. However - three dots in a circle - just like the Caput Mortuum symbol - is apparently the Swedish symbol for döv ("deaf"), which does seem offensive unless it's intended as a representation of the letter "ö". Salmanazar (talk) 16:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

It is just a coincidence. There are many symbols composed of three dots in a triangle, most of which are entirely unrelated. -Stelio (talk) 22:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

Category edit

This is coming up on the list of Chemistry articles to be fixed in Wiki. I don't think this has much to do with chemistry in the classic sense unless you're going to go into detail of the components, chemical structure and manufacture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.46.95.243 (talk) 05:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)Reply