110-530: [REDACTED] Look up achromatic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Achromatic means literally “without color”. It may refer to: Achromatic colors, “ greys ” or “neutral colors”, also black or white Achromatic lens , a lens designed to minimize chromatic aberration Achromatic vision: Monochromacy (total color blindness) Achromatopsia Monochrome (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
220-543: A hex triplet for the RGB value. All are spelled gray , using the spelling grey can cause errors. This spelling was inherited from the X11 color list . Internet Explorer 's Trident browser engine does not recognize grey and renders it green. Another anomaly is that gray is in fact much darker than the X11 color marked darkgray ; this is because of a conflict with the original HTML gray and
330-686: A color name in the English language was in 700 CE . Grey is the dominant spelling in European and Commonwealth English, while gray is more common in American English; however, both spellings are valid in both varieties of English. In Europe and North America, surveys show that gray is the color most commonly associated with neutrality , conformity , boredom , uncertainty , old age , indifference , and modesty . Only one percent of respondents chose it as their favorite color . Grey comes from
440-719: A common color for military uniforms; in an age of rifles with longer range, soldiers in grey were less visible as targets than those in blue or red. Grey was the color of the uniforms of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War , and of the Prussian Army for active service wear from 1910 onwards. Several artists of the mid-19th century used tones of grey to create memorable paintings; Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot used tones of green-grey and blue grey to give harmony to his landscapes, and James McNeill Whistler created
550-475: A half millennia . It began with the incipient unification of Nile Valley polities around 3100 BC, traditionally under Menes . The civilisation of ancient Egypt was characterised primarily by intensive agricultural use of the fertile Nile Valley; the use of the Nile itself for transportation; the development of writing systems – first hieroglyphs and then later hieratic and other derived scripts – and literature ;
660-493: A large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the Old (20th to 18th centuries BC), Middle (14th to 11th centuries BC), and Neo-Assyrian (9th to 7th centuries BC) kingdoms, or periods. Mitanni was a Hurrian empire in northern Mesopotamia founded around 1500 BC. The Mitanians conquered and controlled Assyria until the 14th century BC while contending with Egypt for control of parts of modern Syria. Its capital
770-575: A later emperor, Darius the Great , expanded the empire to the Indus River , creating the largest empire in the world to that date. But Darius and his son Xerxes I failed to expand into Greece , with expeditions in 490 and 480 BC eventually failing. The Achaemenid dynasty and empire fell to Alexander the Great by 330 BC, and after Alexander's death, much of the area previously ruled by the Cyrus and his successors
880-401: A layer of clouds that covers the entire sky, and which have a depth of between a few hundred to a few thousand feet thick. The thicker the clouds, the darker they appear from below, because little of the sunlight is able to pass through. From above, in an airplane, the same clouds look perfectly white, but from the ground the sky looks gloomy and grey. The color of a person's hair is created by
990-501: A minute amount of color saturation. Yellow, orange, and red create a "warm grey". Green, blue, and violet create a "cool grey". When no color is added, the color is "neutral grey", "achromatic grey", or simply "grey". Images consisting wholly of black, white and greys are called monochrome , black-and-white , or greyscale . There are several tones of grey available for use with HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as named colors, while 254 true greys are available by specification of
1100-566: A natural camouflage and allows them to blend with their surroundings. The substance that composes the brain is sometimes referred to as grey matter , or "the little grey cells", so the color grey is associated with things intellectual. However, the living human brain is actually pink in color; it only turns grey when dead. Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario, also known as ecophagy : out-of-control self-replicating nanobots consume all living matter on Earth while building more of themselves. In sound engineering, grey noise
1210-447: A number of dynasties that peaked in power under the reign of Ashoka Maurya, one of India's most legendary and famous emperors. During the reign of Ashoka, the four dynasties of Chola , Chera , and Pandya were ruling in the South, while Devanampiya Tissa (250–210 BC) controlled Anuradhapura (now Sri Lanka ). These kingdoms, while not part of Ashoka's empire, were in friendly terms with
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#17328562101491320-514: A period often known as the Vedic period . Between 1500 and 500 BC these peoples spread throughout most of India and had begun to found small cities. Vedic society was characterized by the varna system which divided society into four broad castes, which were later elaborated. By the end of the Vedic period, this way of organizing society had become central to Indian society. Religion in the late Vedic period
1430-457: A solid bluish-grey, others had uniforms colored with vegetable dyes made from sumac or logwood , which quickly faded in sunshine to the yellowish color of butternut squash . The German Army wore grey uniforms from 1907 until 1945, during both the First World War and Second World War . The color chosen was a grey-green called field grey (German: feldgrau ). It was chosen because it
1540-470: A special grey for the background of the portrait of his mother, and for his own self-portrait. Whistler's arrangement of tones of grey had an effect on the world of music, on the French composer Claude Debussy . In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting". In
1650-699: A symbol of their vows of humility and poverty. Franciscan friars in England and Scotland were commonly known as the grey friars , and that name is now attached to many places in Great Britain. During the Renaissance and the Baroque, grey began to play an important role in fashion and art. Black became the most popular color of the nobility, particularly in Italy, France, and Spain, and grey and white were harmonious with it. Grey
1760-456: A tradition of bronze production and the manufacture of evermore refined bronze and iron objects, such as plows, axes and sickles with shaft holes, socketed arrows and spearheads and small ornamented items. By about 500 BCE, large and delicately decorated bronze drums of remarkable quality, weighing more than 70 kg (150 lb), were produced in the laborious lost-wax casting process. This industry of highly sophisticated metal processing
1870-651: A white made of lime, which he warmed with a little red lake color from cochineal or madder . In one painting, the portrait of Margaretha de Geer (1661), one part of a grey wall in the background is painted with a layer of dark brown over a layer of orange, red, and yellow earths, mixed with ivory black and some lead white . Over this he put an additional layer of glaze made of mixture of blue smalt , red ochre , and yellow lake. Using these ingredients and many others, he made greys which had, according to art historian Philip Ball, "an incredible subtlety of pigmentation". The warm, dark and rich greys and browns served to emphasize
1980-494: Is random noise subjected to an equal-loudness contour , such as an inverted A-weighting curve, over a given range of frequencies, giving the listener the perception that it is equally loud at all frequencies. In the Christian religion, grey is the color of ashes, and so a biblical symbol of mourning and repentance , described as sackcloth and ashes . It can be used during Lent or on special days of fasting and prayer. As
2090-523: Is Harappan, after the first of its cities to be excavated, Harappa in the Pakistani province of Punjab . Harappan civilization grew out of the earlier agricultural communities as they evolved into cities. These communities created and traded jewelry, figurines, and seals that appear widely scattered throughout Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, and Iran. Chickens were domesticated in addition to the earlier crops and animals. They developed their own writing system,
2200-461: Is a function of their depth. Small, fluffy white clouds in summer look white because the sunlight is being scattered by the tiny water droplets they contain, and that white light comes to the viewer's eye. However, as clouds become larger and thicker, the white light cannot penetrate through the cloud, and is reflected off the top. Clouds look darkest grey during thunderstorms, when they can be as much as 20,000 to 30,000 feet high. Stratiform clouds are
2310-510: Is a term sometimes used pejoratively by environmentalists in the green movement to describe those who oppose environmental measures and supposedly prefer the grey of concrete and cement. During the American Civil War , the soldiers of the Confederate Army wore grey uniforms. At the beginning of the war, the armies of the North and of the South had very similar uniforms; some Confederate units wore blue, and some Union units wore grey. There naturally
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#17328562101492420-456: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Grey Grey (more frequent British English ) or gray (more frequent American English ) is an intermediate color between black and white . It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma and therefore no hue . It is the color of a cloud-covered sky, of ash , and of lead . The first recorded use of grey as
2530-609: Is rarely used as a color by political parties, largely because of its common association with conformity, boredom and indecision. An example of a political party using grey as a color are the German Grey Panthers . The term "grey power" or "the grey vote" is sometimes used to describe the influence of older voters as a voting bloc . In the United States, older people are more likely to vote, and usually vote to protect certain social benefits, such as Social Security . Greys
2640-674: Is uncertain. In the February 2005 issue of Science , a team of Harvard scientists suggested that the cause was the failure of the melanocyte stem cells to maintain the production of the essential pigments, due to age or genetic factors, after a certain period of time. For some people, the breakdown comes in their twenties; for others, many years later. According to the site of the magazine Scientific American , "Generally speaking, among Caucasians 50 percent are 50 percent grey by age 50." Adult male gorillas also develop silver hair, but only on their backs – see Physical characteristics of gorillas . Over
2750-514: Is yet to be confirmed with extensive survey work. With the help of archaeological excavations mainly by Susan and Roderick McIntosh , the site is known to have been occupied from 250 BC to AD 900. The city is believed to have been abandoned and moved where the current city is located due to the spread of Islam and the building of the Great Mosque of Djenné . Previously, it was assumed that advanced trade networks and complex societies did not exist in
2860-555: The Chaldeans in 614 BC. The Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great , who first became king of the Persians, then conquered the Medes, Lydia , and Babylon by 539 BC. The empire built on earlier Mesopotamian systems of government to govern their large empire. By building roads, they improved both the ability to send governmental instructions throughout their lands as well as improving
2970-747: The Congo River and into the Great Lakes area. By AD 1000 these groups had spread throughout all of southern Africa south of the equator. Iron metallurgy and agriculture spread along with these peoples, with the cultivation of millet, oil palms, sorghum, and yams as well as the use of domesticated cattle, pigs, and sheep. These technologies helped increase population, and settled communities became common in sub-Saharan Africa except in deserts or heavy forests. Paleolithic tools have been discovered in India dating to 200,000 years ago, and Neolithic sites are known from near
3080-658: The Indus Valley dating to around 8000 BC. Agriculture began in the Indus Valley around 7000 BC, and reached the Ganges Valley by 3000 BC. Barley , cotton , and wheat were grown and the population had domesticated cattle, goats, and sheep. The Indus Valley Civilisation developed around 3000 BC in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys of eastern Afghanistan , Pakistan, and western India. Another name for this civilisation
3190-490: The Indus Valley script , which is still mostly undeciphered. The exact structure of society and the way the cities were governed is not known. By about 1600 BC, the Indus Valley culture had abandoned many of their cities, including Mohenjo-Daro . The exact reason for this decline is not known. Indo-European speaking peoples began to spread into India about 1500 BC. The Rigveda , in Sanskrit , dates to this period and begins
3300-575: The Maccabean revolt led to independence during Hellenistic period until Roman conquest . Phoenicia was an ancient civilisation centered in the north of ancient Canaan , with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern-day Lebanon , Syria and Israel. Phoenician civilisation was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean between the period of 1550 to 300 BC. One Phoenician colony, Carthage , ruled an empire in
3410-766: The Maritime Jade Road , a jade trade network, in Southeast Asia which existed in Taiwan and the Philippines for 3,000 years from 2000 BCE to 1000 CE. The trade was established by links between the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Philippines, and later included parts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and other areas in Southeast Asia (known as the Sa Huynh - Kalanay Interaction Sphere). Lingling-o artifacts are one of
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3520-583: The Maurya Empire . An alliance existed between Devanampiya Tissa and Ashoka of India, who sent Buddhist missionaries to Sri Lanka. Most of North India was reunited under the Gupta Empire beginning under Chandragupta I around AD 320. Under his successors the empire spread to include much of India except for the Deccan Plateau and the very south of the peninsula. This was a period of relative peace, and
3630-567: The Middle English grai or grei , from the Old English grǣġ , and is related to the Dutch grauw and German grau . There are no certain cognates outside Germanic languages ; terms such as Spanish gris and Italian grigio are considered Germanic loanwords from Medieval Latin griseus . The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language
3740-739: The Nile Delta in the north, as far south as Jebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. Extensions to the geographical range of ancient Egyptian civilisation included, at different times, areas of the southern Levant , the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula , and the Western Desert (focused on the several oases ). Ancient Egypt developed over at least three and
3850-661: The Old Kingdom , which saw pyramid building on a large scale. After 2100 BC, the Old Kingdom dissolved into smaller states during the First Intermediate Period , which lasted about 100 years. The Middle Kingdom began around 2000 BC with the reunification of Egypt under pharoes ruling from Thebes . The Middle Kingdom ended with the conquest of northern Egypt by the Hyksos around 1650 BC. The Hyksos were expelled from Egypt and
3960-787: The Pitcairns , the Kermadec Islands , and the Norfolk Islands were also formerly settled by Austronesians but later abandoned. There is also putative evidence, based in the spread of the sweet potato , that Austronesians may have reached South America from Polynesia, where they might have traded with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas . Austronesians established prehistoric maritime trade networks in Island Southeast Asia, including
4070-812: The Seleucid Empire . Parthia had many wars with the Romans, but it was rebellions within the empire that ended it in the 3rd century AD. The Sasanian Empire began when the Parthian Empire ended in AD 224. Their rulers claimed the Achaemenids as ancestors and set up their capital at Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia. Their period of greatest military expansion occurred under Shapur I , who by the time of his death in AD 272 had defeated Roman imperial armies and set up buffer states between
4180-686: The Stone Age , the Bronze Age , and the Iron Age , with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During
4290-491: The Zapotec civilization . The ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization . It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; created one of the first coherent writing systems , invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular wheel , created the first centralized governments , law codes and empires, as well as displaying social stratification , slavery, and organized warfare. It began
4400-420: The beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity . The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500, ending with the expansion of Islam in late antiquity. The three-age system periodizes ancient history into
4510-403: The drape suit , with wide shoulders and a nipped waist, usually dark or light grey. After World War II, the style changed to a slimmer fit called the continental cut, but the color remained grey. In America and Europe, grey is one of the least popular colors; In a European survey, only one percent of men said it was their favorite color, and thirteen percent called it their least favorite color;
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4620-563: The Assyrians, who conquered Israel in 722 BC. The Neo-Babylonian Empire did the same to Judah in 586. After both conquests, the conquering forces deported many of the inhabitants to other regions of their respective empires. Following the fall of Babylon to the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great allowed the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem , and some of the exiles from Judah returned to Judea , where they remained under Persian rule until
4730-571: The Confederacy. The new uniforms were designed by Nicola Marschall , a German-American artist, who also designed the original Confederate flag . He closely followed the design of contemporary French and Austrian military uniforms. Grey was not chosen for its camouflage value; this benefit was not appreciated for several more decades. The South lacked a major dye industry, though, and grey dyes were inexpensive and easy to manufacture. While some units had uniforms colored with good-quality dyes, which were
4840-628: The Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony , but an ethnic group rather than an organised state. Israel had emerged by the middle of the 9th century BC, when the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III named " Ahab the Israelite" among his enemies at the battle of Qarqar (853). Judah emerged somewhat later than Israel, probably during the 9th century BC, but the subject is one of considerable controversy. Israel came into conflict with
4950-510: The Fertile Crescent, alongside the first evidence for agriculture. Other animals, such as pigs and poultry , were later domesticated and used as food sources. Cattle and water buffalo were domesticated around 7000 BC and horses , donkeys , and camels were domesticated by about 4000 BC. All of these animals were used not only for food, but to carry and pull people and loads, greatly increasing human ability to do work. The invention of
5060-695: The German model. Some of the more recent uniforms of the German Army and East German Army were field grey, as were some uniforms of the Swedish army . The formal dress (M/83) of the Finnish Army is grey. The Army of Chile wears field grey today. During the 19th century, women's fashions were largely dictated by Paris, while London set fashions for men. The intent of a business suit was above all to show seriousness, and to show one's position in business and society. Over
5170-596: The Gupta rulers generally left administration in local rulers. The Gupta Empire was weakened and ultimately ruined by the raids of Hunas (a branch of the Hephthalites emanating from Central Asia), and the empire broke up into smaller regional kingdoms by the end of the fifth century AD. India would remain fragmented into smaller states until the rise of the Mughal Empire in the 1500s. The Neolithic period of Southeast Asia
5280-864: The Malayan-Indonesian " thalassian " zone shared these characteristics with Indochinese polities like the Pyu city-states in the Irrawaddy River valley, the Văn Lang kingdom in the Red River Delta and Funan around the lower Mekong . Văn Lang, founded in the 7th century BCE, endured until 258 BCE under the Hồng Bàng dynasty , as part of the Đông Sơn culture that sustained a dense and organised population that produced an elaborate Bronze Age industry. Intensive wet-rice cultivation in an ideal climate enabled
5390-399: The Middle East. Egypt developed its own system of hieroglyphs by about 3200 BC. By 2800 BC the Indus Valley Civilization had developed its Indus script , which remains undeciphered. Chinese Characters were independently developed in China during the Shang dynasty in the form of the Oracle Bone Script dating to the period 1600 to 1100 BC. Writing in Mesoamerica dates to 600 BC with
5500-408: The Nubians had created a new kingdom further south, known as the Kingdom of Kush , centred on the upper Nile with a capital at Kerma . In the Egyptian New Kingdom period, Kush once more was conquered by Egypt. However, by 1100 BC a new kingdom of Kush had formed, with a capital at Napata . Nubian rulers conquered Egypt around 760 BC and retained control for about a century. The Kingdom of Aksum
5610-472: The Pacific Islands to successfully retain rice cultivation. Palau and Yap were settled by separate voyages by 1000 BCE. Another important migration branch was by the Lapita culture , which rapidly spread into the islands off the coast of northern New Guinea and into the Solomon Islands and other parts of coastal New Guinea and Island Melanesia by 1200 BCE. They reached the islands of Fiji , Samoa , and Tonga by around 900 to 800 BCE. This remained
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#17328562101495720-401: The Sasanians and Roman Empires. After Shapur, the Sasanians were under more pressure from the Kushans to their east as well as the Roman then Byzantine Empire to its west. However, the Sasanians rebuilt and founded numerous cities and their merchants traveled widely and introduced crops such as sugar, rice, and cotton into the Iranian plateau. But in AD 651, the last Sassanid emperor was killed by
5830-411: The Western Mediterranean until being defeated by Rome in the Punic Wars . The Phoenicians invented the Phoenician alphabet , the forerunner of the modern alphabet still in use today. The history of Pre-Islamic Arabia before the rise of Islam in the AD 630s is not known in great detail. Archaeological exploration in the Arabian Peninsula has been sparse; indigenous written sources are limited to
5940-400: The X11 gray, which is closer to HTML's silver . The three slategray colors are not themselves on the greyscale, but are slightly saturated toward cyan (green + blue). Since there are an even (256, including black and white) number of unsaturated tones of grey, there are two grey tones straddling the midpoint in the 8-bit greyscale. The color name gray has been assigned the lighter of
6050-492: The ability of their military forces to be deployed rapidly. Increased trade and upgraded farming techniques increased wealth, but also exacerbated inequalities between social classes. The empire's location at the centre of trading networks spread its intellectual and philosophical ideas throughout a wide area, and its religion, while not itself spreading far, had an impact on later religions such as Christianity , Islam , and Judaism . Cyrus' son Cambyses II conquered Egypt, while
6160-433: The archipelago of the Philippines , intermingling with the earlier Australo-Melanesian population who had inhabited the islands since about 23,000 years earlier. Over the next thousand years, Austronesian peoples migrated southeast to the rest of the Philippines, and into the islands of the Celebes Sea and Borneo. From southwestern Borneo, Austronesians spread further west in a single migration event to both Sumatra and
6270-402: The black screen makes white; by lowering the intensity, it is possible to create shades of grey . In printing, grey is usually obtained with the CMYK color model , using cyan , magenta , yellow, and black. Grey is produced either by using black and white, or by combining equal amounts of cyan, magenta, and yellow. Most greys have a cool or warm cast to them, as the human eye can detect even
6380-406: The capital of the Akkadian Empire. Despite an extensive search, the precise site has never been found. Akkad reached the height of its power between about 2330 and 2150 BC, following the conquests of King Sargon of Akkad . Through the spread of Sargon's empire, the language of Akkad, known as Akkadian from the city, spread and replaced the Sumerian language in Mesopotamia and eventually by 1450 BC
6490-407: The casting of iron with molds and then hammering it which enabled weapons and tools to be made stronger and also cheaper. Although chariots had been used previously, the use of spoked wheels allowed the chariots to be much lighter and more maneuverable. In 1274 BC the Hittites clashed with the Egyptians at the Battle of Kadesh , where both sides claimed victory. In 1207 the Hittite capital of Hattusa
6600-453: The centuries, artists have traditionally created grey by mixing black and white in various proportions. They added a little red to make a warmer grey, or a little blue for a cooler grey. Artists could also make a grey by mixing two complementary colors , such as orange and blue. Today the grey on televisions, computer displays, and telephones is usually created using the RGB color model . Red, green, and blue light combined at full intensity on
6710-423: The coastal regions of southern Vietnam, becoming the ancestors of the speakers of the Malayic and Chamic branches of the Austronesian language family. Soon after reaching the Philippines, Austronesians colonized the Northern Mariana Islands by 1500 BCE or even earlier, becoming the first humans to reach Remote Oceania . The Chamorro migration was also unique in that it was the only Austronesian migration to
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#17328562101496820-409: The color of humility and modesty, grey is worn by friars of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and Franciscan order as well as monks of the Cistercian order . Grey cassocks are worn by clergy of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church . Buddhist monks and priests in Japan and Korea will often wear a sleeved grey, brown, or black outer robe. Taoist priests in China also often wear grey. Grey
6930-405: The course of the century, bright colors disappeared from men's fashion, and were largely replaced by a black or dark charcoal grey frock coat in winter, and lighter greys in summer. In the early 20th century, the frock coat was gradually replaced by the lounge suit , a less formal version of evening dress, which was also usually black or charcoal grey. In the 1930s the English suit style was called
7040-417: The elderly and old age, because of the association with grey hair; it symbolizes the wisdom and dignity that come with experience and age. The New York Times is sometimes called The Grey Lady because of its long history and esteemed position in American journalism. Grey is the color most often associated in Europe and America with modesty. Ancient history Ancient history is a time period from
7150-484: The empire was Aksum , now in northern Ethiopia. The Nok culture appeared in Nigeria around 1000 BC and mysteriously vanished around AD 200. The civilisation's social system is thought to have been highly advanced. The Nok civilisation was considered to be the earliest sub-Saharan producer of life-sized Terracotta which have been discovered by archaeologists. The Nok also used iron smelting that may have been independently developed. The civilisation of Djenné-Djenno
7260-438: The entire territory. Among large, thin-walled terracotta jars, ornamented and colorized cooking pots, glass items, jade earrings and metal objects were deposited near the rivers and along the coast. Around 3000 to 1500 BCE, a large-scale migration of Austronesians , known as the Austronesian expansion began from Taiwan . Population growth primarily fueled this migration. These first settlers settled in northern Luzon , in
7370-486: The expanding Islamic Arabs. The Hittites first came to Anatolia about 1900 BC and during the period 1600-1500 they expanded into Mesopotamia where they adopted the cuneiform script to their Indo-European language. By 1200 their empire stretched to Phoenicia and eastern Anatolia . They improved two earlier technologies from Mesopotamia and spread these new techniques widely – improved iron working and light chariots with spoked wheels in warfare. The Hittites introduced
7480-461: The farming communities to produce a regular crop surplus that was used by the ruling elite to raise, command and pay work forces for public construction and maintenance projects such as canals and fortifications. The earliest known evidence of copper and bronze production in Southeast Asia was found at Ban Chiang in north-east Thailand and among the Phùng Nguyên culture of northern Vietnam around 2000 BCE. The Đông Sơn culture established
7590-512: The furthest extent of the Austronesian expansion into Polynesia until around 700 CE, when there was another surge of island colonization. It reached the Cook Islands , Tahiti , and the Marquesas by 700 CE; Hawaii by 900 CE; Rapa Nui by 1000 CE; and New Zealand by 1200 CE. For a few centuries, the Polynesian islands were connected by bidirectional long-distance sailing, with the exception of Rapa Nui, which had limited further contact due to its isolated geographical location. Island groups like
7700-408: The golden light on the faces in the paintings. Grey became a highly fashionable color in the 18th century, both for women's dresses and for men's waistcoats and coats. It looked particularly luminous coloring the silk and satin fabrics worn by the nobility and wealthy. Women's fashion in the 19th century was dominated by Paris, while men's fashion was set by London. The grey business suit appeared in
7810-520: The hair grows. As hair grows, the melanocyte injects melanin into the hair cells, which contain the protein keratin and which makes up our hair, skin, and nails. As long as the melanocytes continue injecting melanin into the hair cells, the hair retains its original color. At a certain age, however, which varies from person to person, the amount of melanin injected is reduced and eventually stops. The hair, without pigment, turns grey and eventually white. The reason for this decline of production of melanocytes
7920-545: The land was reunited in the New Kingdom around 1550 BC. This period lasted until about 1000 BC, and saw Egypt expand its borders into Palestine and Syria. The Third Intermediate Period was marked by the rule of priests as well as the conquest of Egypt by Nubian kings and then later Assyria, Persia, and Macedonians. The Ta-Seti kingdom in Nubia to the south of Egypt was conquered by Egyptian rulers around 3100 BC, but by 2500 BC
8030-551: The late 1930s, grey became a symbol of industrialization and war. It was the dominant color of Pablo Picasso 's celebrated painting about the horrors of the Spanish Civil War , Guernica . After the war, the grey business suit became a metaphor for uniformity of thought, popularized in such books as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955), which became a successful film in 1956. The whiteness or darkness of clouds
8140-463: The many inscriptions and coins from southern Arabia. Existing material consists primarily of written sources from other traditions (such as Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, etc.) and oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars. A number of small kingdoms existed in Arabia from around AD 100 to perhaps about AD 400. Carthage was founded around 814 BC by Phoenician settlers. Ancient Carthage
8250-411: The market. Payne's grey is a dark blue-grey , a mixture of ultramarine and black or of ultramarine and sienna . It is named after William Payne , a British artist who painted watercolors in the late 18th century. The first recorded use of Payne's grey as a color name in English was in 1835. Grey is a very common color for animals, birds, and fish, ranging in size from whales to mice. It provides
8360-488: The mid-19th century in London; light grey in summer, dark grey in winter; replacing the more colorful palette of men's clothing early in the century. The clothing of women working in the factories and workshops of Paris in the 19th century was usually grey. This gave them the name of grisettes . " Gris " or grey also meant drunk, and the name " grisette " was also given to the lower class of Parisian prostitutes. Grey also became
8470-442: The organisation of collective projects such as the pyramids ; trade with surrounding regions; and a polytheistic religious tradition that included elaborate funeral customs including mummification . Overseeing these activities were a socio-political and economic elite under the figure of a (semi)-divine ruler from a succession of ruling dynasties . Ancient Egyptian history is divided across various periods, beginning with
8580-413: The pigment melanin , found in the core of each hair. Melanin is also responsible for the color of the skin and of the eyes. There are only two types of pigment: dark ( eumelanin ) or light ( phaeomelanin ). Combined in various combinations, these pigments create all natural hair colors. Melanin itself is the product of a specialized cell, the melanocyte , which is found in each hair follicle , from which
8690-472: The population to settle in one place instead of migrating after crops and herds. It also allowed for a much greater population density, and in turn required an extensive labour force and division of labour. This organization led to the necessity of record keeping and the development of writing. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq ), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of
8800-554: The region in the former savannah of the Sahara. Its inhabitants fished and grew millet. It has been found that the Soninke of the Mandé peoples were responsible for constructing such settlements. Around 300 BC, the region became more desiccated and the settlements began to decline, most likely relocating to Koumbi Saleh. From the type of architecture and pottery, it is believed that Tichit was related to
8910-618: The region until the arrival of traders from Southwest Asia . However, sites such as Djenné-Djenno disprove this, as these traditions in West Africa flourished long before. Towns similar to that at Djenne-Jeno also developed at the site of Dia, also in Mali along the Niger River , from around 900 BC. Dhar Tichitt and Oualata were prominent among the early urban centres, dated to 2000 BC, in present-day Mauritania. About 500 stone settlements littered
9020-424: The response from women was almost the same. According to color historian Eva Heller, "grey is too weak to be considered masculine, but too menacing to be considered a feminine color. It is neither warm nor cold, neither material or spiritual . With grey, nothing seems to be decided." It also denotes undefinedness and ambiguity , as in a grey area . Grey is the color most commonly associated in many cultures with
9130-417: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Achromatic . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Achromatic&oldid=1056938419 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
9240-572: The same time period. Cultivation of millet, rice , and legumes began around 7000 BC in China . Taro cultivation in New Guinea dates to about 7000 BC also with squash cultivation in Mesoamerica perhaps sharing that date. Animal domestication began with the domestication of dogs , which dates to at least 15,000 years ago, and perhaps even earlier. Sheep and goats were domesticated around 9000 BC in
9350-669: The same time, southeastern Europe and Siberia around 40,000 years ago, and Japan about 30,000 years ago. Humans migrated to the Americas about 15,000 years ago. Evidence for agriculture emerges in about 9000 BC in what is now eastern Turkey and spread through the Fertile Crescent . Settlement at Göbekli Tepe began around 9500 BC and may have the world's oldest temple. The Nile River Valley has evidence of sorghum and millet cultivation starting around 8000 BC and agricultural use of yams in Western Africa perhaps dates to
9460-465: The simple plough by 6000 BC further increased agricultural efficiency. Metal use in the form of hammered copper items predates the discovery of smelting of copper ores , which happened around 6000 BC in western Asia and independently in eastern Asia before 2000 BC. Gold and silver use dates to between 6000 and 5000 BC. Alloy metallurgy began with bronze in about 3500 BC in Mesopotamia and
9570-718: The study of the stars and the sciences of astronomy and mathematics. Mesopotamia is the site of some of the earliest known civilisations in the world. Agricultural communities emerged in the area with the Halaf culture around 8000 BC and continued to expand through the Ubaid period around 6000 BC. Cities began in the Uruk period (4000–3100 BC) and expanded during the Jemdet Nasr (3100–2900 BC) and Early Dynastic (2900–2350 BC) periods. The surplus of storable foodstuffs created by this economy allowed
9680-439: The subsequent Ghana Empire. Old Jenne (Djenne) began to be settled around 300 BC, producing iron and with sizeable population, evidenced in crowded cemeteries. The inhabitants and creators of these settlements during these periods are thought to have been ancestors of the Soninke people. Peoples speaking precursors to the modern-day Bantu languages began to spread throughout southern Africa, and by 2000 BC they were expanding past
9790-517: The territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad . The Neo-Babylonian Empire , or Chaldea , was Babylonia from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II , it conquered Jerusalem . This empire also created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the still-surviving Ishtar Gate as architectural embellishments of its capital at Babylon. Akkad was a city and its surrounding region near Babylon. Akkad also became
9900-508: The time period of ancient history, the world population was already exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution , which was in full progress. While in 10,000 BC, the world population stood at 2 million, it rose to 45 million by 3000 BC. By the Iron Age in 1000 BC, the population had risen to 72 million. By the end of the ancient period in AD 500, the world population is thought to have stood at 209 million. In 10,500 years,
10010-406: The two shades (128, also known as #808080), due to rounding up. Until the 19th century, artists traditionally created grey by simply combining black and white. Rembrandt Van Rijn , for instance, usually used lead white and either carbon black or ivory black , along with touches of either blues or reds to cool or warm the grey. In the early 19th century, a new grey, Payne's grey , appeared on
10120-568: The use of fire has been dated as early as 1.8 million years ago, a date which is contested, with generally accepted evidence for the controlled use of fire dating to 780,000 years ago. Actual use of hearths first appears 400,000 years ago. Dates for the emergence of Homo sapiens (modern humans) range from 250,000 to 160,000 years ago, with the varying dates being based on DNA studies and fossils respectively. Some 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa . They reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, southwestern Europe about
10230-555: The world population increased by 100 times. Prehistory is the period before written history. Most of our knowledge of that period comes from the work of archaeologists. Prehistory is often known as the Stone Age , and is divided into the Paleolithic (earliest), Mesolithic , and Neolithic . The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. Evidence for
10340-526: Was Washukanni , whose precise location has not been determined by archaeologists. The Medes and Persians were peoples who had appeared in the Iranian plateau around 1500 BC. Both peoples spoke Indo-European languages and were mostly pastoralists with a tradition of horse archery. The Medes established their own Median Empire by the 6th century BC, having defeated the Neo-Assyrian Empire with
10450-522: Was a city-state that ruled an empire through alliances and trade influence that stretched throughout North Africa and modern Spain . At the height of the city's influence, its empire included most of the western Mediterranean. The empire was in a constant state of struggle with the Roman Republic , which led to a series of conflicts known as the Punic Wars . After the third and final Punic War , Carthage
10560-453: Was a particularly good background color for gold and for skin tones. It became the most common background for the portraits of Rembrandt van Rijn and for many of the paintings of El Greco , who used it to highlight the faces and costumes of the central figures. The palette of Rembrandt was composed almost entirely of somber colors. He composed his warm greys out of black pigments made from charcoal or burnt animal bones, mixed with lead white or
10670-411: Was also frequently used for the drawing of oil paintings, a technique called grisaille . The painting would first be composed in grey and white, and then the colors, made with thin transparent glazes, would be added on top. The grisaille beneath would provide the shading, visible through the layers of color. Sometimes, the grisaille was simply left uncovered, giving the appearance of carved stone. Grey
10780-487: Was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa centered in present-day Eritrea and northern Ethiopia , it existed from approximately AD 100 to 940, growing from the Iron Age proto-Aksumite period around the 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD. The Kingdom of Aksum at its height by the early 6th-century AD extended through much of modern Ethiopia and across the Red Sea to Arabia. The capital city of
10890-445: Was characterized by several migrations into Mainland and Island Southeast Asia from southern China by Austronesian , Austroasiatic , Kra-Dai and Hmong-Mien -speakers. Territorial principalities in both Insular and Mainland Southeast Asia, characterized as "agrarian kingdoms", developed an economy by around 500 BCE based on surplus crop cultivation and moderate coastal trade of domestic natural products. Several states of
11000-622: Was confusion, and sometimes soldiers fired by mistake at soldiers of their own army. On June 6, 1861, the Confederate government issued regulations standardizing the army uniform and establishing cadet grey as the uniform color. This was (and still is) the color of the uniform of cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and cadets at the Virginia Military Institute , which produced many officers for
11110-529: Was destroyed and then occupied by Roman forces. Nearly all of the territory held by Carthage fell into Roman hands. Ancient Egypt was a long-lived civilisation geographically located in north-eastern Africa. It was concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River, reaching its greatest extent during the 2nd millennium BC, which is referred to as the New Kingdom period. It reached broadly from
11220-455: Was developed independent of Chinese or Indian influence. Historians relate these achievements to the presence of organized, centralized and hierarchical communities and a large population. Between 1000 BCE and 100 CE, the Sa Huỳnh culture flourished along the south-central coast of Vietnam . Ceramic jar burial sites that included grave goods have been discovered at various sites along
11330-758: Was developed independently in China by 2000 BC. Pottery developed independently throughout the world, with fired pots appearing first among the Jomon of Japan and in West Africa at Mali . Sometime between 5000 and 4000 BC the potter's wheel was invented. By 3000 BC, the pottery wheel was adapted into wheeled vehicles which could be used to carry loads further and easier than with human or animal power alone. Writing developed separately in five different locations in human history: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, and Mesoamerica. By 3400 BC, "proto-literate" cuneiform spread in
11440-421: Was evolving into Hinduism , which spread throughout Southeast Asia. Siddhartha Gautama , born around 560 BC in northern India, went on to found a new religion based on his ascetic life – Buddhism . This faith also spread throughout Eastern and Southeastern Asia after his death. This period also saw the composition of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata . The kingdom of Magadha rose to prominence under
11550-514: Was in 700 AD. The distinction between grey and gray spellings in usual Commonwealth and American English respectively developed c. the 20th century. In antiquity and the Middle Ages , grey was the color of undyed wool, and thus was the color most commonly worn by peasants and the poor. It was also the color worn by Cistercian monks and friars of the Franciscan and Capuchin orders as
11660-576: Was less visible at a distance than the previous German uniforms, which were Prussian blue . It was one of the first uniform colors to be chosen for its camouflage value, important in the new age of smokeless powder and more accurate rifles and machine guns. It gave the Germans a distinct advantage at the beginning of the First World War, when the French soldiers were dressed in blue jackets and red trousers. The Finnish Army also began using grey uniforms on
11770-516: Was located in the Niger River Valley in the country of Mali and is considered to be among the oldest urbanized centers and the best-known archaeology site in sub-Saharan Africa . This archaeological site is located about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) away from the modern town and is believed to have been involved in long-distance trade and possibly the domestication of African rice. The site is believed to exceed 33 hectares (82 acres); however, this
11880-502: Was ruled by the Seleucid dynasty . Parthia was an Iranian civilisation situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran. Their power was based on a combination of military power based on heavy cavalry with a decentralised governing structure based on a federated system . The Parthian Empire was led by the Arsacid dynasty , which by around 155 BC under Mithradates I had mostly conquered
11990-658: Was sacked, ending the Hittite Empire . Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of the ancient Levant and had existed during the Iron Ages and the Neo-Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic periods. The name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah around 1209 BC. This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity of the central highlands, well enough established to be perceived by
12100-623: Was the main language of diplomacy in the Near East. Assyria was originally a region on the Upper Tigris , where a small state was created in the 19th century BC. The capital was at Assur , which gave the state its name. Later, as a nation and empire that came to control all of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt and much of Anatolia , the term "Assyria proper" referred to roughly the northern half of Mesopotamia (the southern half being Babylonia), with Nineveh as its capital. The Assyrian kings controlled
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