Frank Ishtar 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.

Akkadian Ištar, Babylonian-goddess-of-love-and-war. As a color modifier, ishtar implies a Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star quality, the visual register of Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple hand-Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple-and-Akkadian-cylinder-seal ishtar-and-Babylonian-Venus-and-eight-pointed-star surfaces under Babylonian-Ishtar-Gate-and-Mesopotamian-temple-and-Akkadian-cylinder-seal Babylon-and-Nineveh-and-Mari blue-glazed-brick-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to isis and hera 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.