Victor Turner, the anthropologist of ritual, would later call such moments “liminal” — thresholds where ordinary hierarchies or naturally existing freedoms dissolve and a different order briefly governs. Archaeological work by Alison Watts demonstrates that red ochre from particular sources, in Middle Stone Age Africa, was transported across significant distances despite the local availability of similar pigments. Such a patterned preference indicates that red ochre’s value was not reducible to its chemical function or to its colour value. Roman writers describe the use of red ochre and cinnabar in triumphal processions and funerary rites, while in Mesoamerican codices, red pigments signal both sacrifice and renewal. Across these traditions, red signals thresholds: dawn and dusk, war and fertility, earth and blood, death and consecration.

Source: The Hindu March 17, 2026 06:03 UTC