Vermilion

(Jer 22:14) - a red mineral pigment used in antiquity for painting houses and highly valued for decorating Hebrew dwellings and making images. Pliny describes cinnabar as reddish sand found in silver mines. Travelers reported that the eastern custom of painting ceilings with vermilion and sometimes gilding them continued into the nineteenth century. Images of Jupiter were colored with vermilion on solemn days, and it was therefore regarded as a sacred pigment.