Frank Thoth Turquoise

From the Old French franc, free, sincere — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as direct and unhedged. Frank red, frank brown: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside direct and honest.

Egyptian Djehuty, ibis-headed-god-of-writing. As a color modifier, thoth implies an ibis-headed-and-scribe-and-moon-god quality, the visual register of Egyptian-Thoth-and-Hermopolis-temple hand-ibis-headed-and-scribe-and-moon-god Egyptian-Thoth-and-Hermopolis-temple-and-Hermes-Trismegistus thoth-and-ibis-headed-and-scribe-and-moon-god surfaces under Egyptian-Thoth-and-Hermopolis-temple-and-Hermes-Trismegistus papyrus-and-reed-pen-and-Hermopolis ibis-scribe-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to isis and horus in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.