Lapis lazuli particles were found on the fossilized teeth of a nun who lived in a German monastery sometime between AD 997 and AD 1162, possibly indicating she painted religious texts with the expensive pigment, according to findings published in Science Advances. "Based on the distribution of the pigment in her mouth, we concluded that the most likely scenario was that she was herself painting with the pigment and licking the end of the brush while painting," said study co-author Monica Tromp of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
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