Continuing with today’s Egyptian theme, here’s an interesting excerpt of an email my good friend Jason Myre sent to me today after spending his Christmas holiday in Cairo:

I guess I’ll briefly share with you the
three cool things I learned about the ancient Egyptians. The first was
the fact that the hieroglyphics were painted in color. There’s quite a
few examples of paintings that are still intact.

The second, related
to the first, is that the paint they used was made with fruits,
veggies,
herbs, etc. To keep insects from eating the paint, they added toxins.
After thousands of years of being sealed in an air-tight vault, the
tombs were full of dust from the poisonous paint. So… The first few
people to enter the tomb die of poisoning. The mummy’s curse revealed.

Third thing, little thing, is that they commonly wore mustaches. (That
may not be news to some, but it was to me.) You can visibly see them
on
the better preserved statues and paintings.