Look closely at an Egyptian coffin or tomb painting and the color seems almost supernatural. Yet the real wonder may lie beneath the visible surface. A new scientific study of ancient Egyptian paint ingredients has uncovered sesame, moringa and glues made from several kinds of animals. Those materials survived as molecular traces for centuries, hidden inside paint and adhesive layers that once passed through an artisan’s hands.
Published in Science Advances on August 26, 2026, the research challenges the idea that Egyptian painters followed a few simple, predictable formulas. Instead, their workshops drew from a surprisingly broad pantry of biological materials. Cattle supplied much of the glue, but sheep or goats, donkeys, horses and perhaps wild antelopes also contributed. Most remarkably, the team found the first taxonomically specific molecular evidence of sesame and moringa products in painted ancient Egyptian artworks.
The discovery does more than add two unusual items to an ancient supply list. It offers a glimpse of resourceful craftspeople who understood how natural materials behaved. Moreover, it shows how modern science can recover a lost recipe without finding a written recipe at all.
Egyptian Paint Was More Than Ground-Up Color
Every paint needs two basic parts. Pigment supplies the color, while a binder holds the pigment particles together and helps them cling to wood, plaster, stone or cloth. Without a suitable binder, even the richest red ochre or brightest Egyptian blue would behave like loose dust.
Ancient craftspeople could choose from many natural binders. Plant gums, waxes, eggs and protein-rich animal glues all offered different working properties. For example, a water-based glue could produce a relatively quick-drying paint. Beeswax, by contrast, supported the encaustic techniques associated with many later Romano-Egyptian mummy portraits. The binder influenced the paint’s flow, gloss, texture and durability as much as the pigment influenced its color.
However, organic binders create a problem for archaeologists. Minerals often leave recognizable chemical signatures, but proteins and oils decay, mix with burial material and suffer through old conservation treatments. Scientists may also need to remove a microscopic sample from a priceless object. Consequently, researchers know far more about many Egyptian pigments than they know about the invisible substances that held those pigments in place.
That gap makes the new research especially valuable. It shifts attention from the colors that viewers see to the biological machinery that made those colors usable.
Twenty-Eight Tiny Samples and 1,800 Years of Art
Clara Granzotto and an international team studied 28 microsamples from 14 artworks. Together, the objects span roughly 1425 BCE to 400 CE. The selection included painted wooden coffins, cartonnage, tomb-wall fragments, a mummy mask, plasterwork and limestone architectural elements.
The objects now belong to three collections: the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, the British Museum in London and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. One example came from the famous tomb of Nebamun at Thebes. Another came from a painted coffin fragment in Stockholm, cataloged as MM 13944. Although the sample set remains small, it crosses many centuries, object types and workshop traditions.
Researchers removed minute flakes with surgical blades and needles. Next, they used mass spectrometry-based proteomics to break surviving proteins into smaller chains called peptides. Those peptide patterns work somewhat like fragments of a molecular barcode. By matching them against reference databases, the scientists could identify not only broad categories such as “animal glue,” but also likely species and tissues.
The team then combined proteomics with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Each technique answered a different part of the puzzle. Together, they revealed a recipe far more complicated than any single test could show.
The Animal Glue Cabinet Was Surprisingly Crowded
Cattle provided the most common source of collagen among samples that contained animal glue. Still, the results did not stop with cattle. The team also detected evidence linked to sheep or goats, donkeys, horses and possibly an antelope. Egg-white and egg-yolk proteins appeared in some material as well.
Animal glue usually comes from heating collagen-rich body parts in water. Many modern descriptions casually picture ancient glue makers boiling bones. However, the protein evidence in this study points strongly toward hides and other connective tissues in several cases. That distinction matters because it says something about raw-material selection and workshop practice. Egyptian artisans or their suppliers may have processed skins, tendons and related butchery byproducts into useful adhesive.
Meanwhile, the variety raises a question that the study cannot yet settle: Did artists request a particular animal, or did glue makers use whatever suitable material they could obtain? The samples revealed no simple one-animal formula that endured across the entire period. Availability, price, local custom and the demands of a specific object could all have influenced the choice.
Rather than imagining one official Egyptian recipe, we should picture a flexible technology. Skilled artisans likely judged glue by how it mixed, brushed, dried and held. Therefore, the material’s performance may have mattered more than its species name.
Sesame and Moringa Changed the Story
The plant proteins delivered the study’s biggest surprise. Scientists identified seed-storage proteins from sesame (Sesamum indicum) and moringa (Moringa oleifera). Seeds keep these proteins as food for a developing plant, so their presence points to seed-derived material rather than a stray leaf or a piece of wood.
In the Stockholm coffin fragment MM 13944, for instance, a red paint sample contained strong molecular signals from both plants. The team also detected moringa in material from more than one museum collection. Therefore, the result does not look like one unexplained speck from a single object.
Earlier chemical methods usually targeted a short list of familiar art materials. They could often distinguish glue, egg or milk, yet an unexpected plant protein might escape notice. Proteomics asks a wider question: Which protein sequences appear in this sample? That open search helped the ancient Egyptian paint ingredients emerge from molecular data instead of from assumptions about what artists “should” have used.
The result carries another historical implication. Scholars have long discussed when sesame and moringa reached Egypt and how Egyptians used them. According to the researchers, these proteins may provide the first molecularly based, taxonomic confirmation that products from both plants existed and served a purpose in ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, the study identifies the biological source more confidently than it identifies the exact workshop procedure.
Were the Artists Painting With Seed Oil?
Both sesame and moringa produce valuable oils. At first glance, then, an oil-based paint sounds like the obvious explanation. The chemical evidence points in a different direction.
Pure, well-filtered oil should contain abundant fatty compounds but relatively little seed-storage protein. In contrast, the samples held protein-rich material alongside only traces of oil. The researchers therefore propose that artisans may have used seed cake, the solid material left after workers crushed or pressed seeds for oil. Ancient processors could have ground that residue, mixed it with water or another liquid and added the resulting material to paint or adhesive.
This interpretation neatly explains why protein and oil appeared together. In addition, it turns an oil-making byproduct into a useful workshop resource. Modern defatted seed meals can still contain substantial protein, and protein-rich substances can influence how mixtures bind or spread.
Yet no one has recovered an Egyptian label that reads “add one scoop of moringa cake.” The study supports the seed-processing hypothesis through several analytical methods, but it does not prove the precise preparation, concentration or purpose. Perhaps the material acted as a binder. Alternatively, it may have modified texture, extended a more expensive ingredient or entered a mixture for another practical reason. Future experiments with reconstructed recipes could test those possibilities.
A Practical Ingredient, a Sacred Symbol—or Both?
The choice of moringa may carry cultural meaning. The study notes an ancient association between the moringa tree and Ptah, the Memphite god closely connected with craftspeople and creation. Egyptian artisans could have understood a moringa product as more than convenient workshop material, especially on funerary objects shaped by religious purpose.
Sesame and moringa oils also held value outside painting. People used plant oils in food, medicine, body care, ritual and mummification. Consequently, the ingredients belonged to wider networks of farming, trade and specialized processing. A painter who acquired seed residue may have stood at the end of a supply chain that began in a field and passed through an oil press.
Even so, symbolic meaning remains a possibility rather than a demonstrated fact. The surviving proteins cannot tell us what an artist believed. Nor can they reveal whether a workshop bought a prestigious sacred material or simply reused an affordable byproduct. Practical and religious motives did not have to exclude each other, either. Ancient Egyptians routinely connected everyday substances with ritual power.
That uncertainty makes the discovery more interesting, not less. It opens a conversation between chemistry, archaeology, economics and religion. More samples from securely dated objects may eventually show whether moringa clustered around certain places, periods, colors or funerary uses.
Why the Discovery Matters to Museums
Knowing a paint’s binder helps conservators predict how the surface may respond to humidity, heat, solvents and adhesives. Animal glue, egg and plant material can age differently. Moreover, a treatment that protects one component could soften, stain or weaken another.
The findings also warn against overly tidy classifications. A conservator cannot safely assume that every matte Egyptian paint uses the same gum or that every collagen signal came from cattle bone. Mixed proteins and unusual seed products may lurk in layers that look nearly identical to the naked eye.
Proteomics will not replace imaging, microscopy or conventional chemical analysis. Instead, it adds a powerful line of evidence. The researchers reached their seed-cake proposal only after combining protein data with infrared spectroscopy, molecular analysis and archaeological context. That multidisciplinary approach provides a model for future studies of fragile art.
Finally, the work restores some individuality to anonymous artisans. These painters did not merely fill outlined figures with standard colors. They chose, prepared and adjusted complicated materials. Their expertise lived in touch, timing and observation—knowledge that rarely entered royal inscriptions but still survives in the paint.
The Lost Recipe Is Beginning to Reappear
This study does not produce one universal formula for how ancient Egyptians made paint. Instead, it reveals a changing toolkit filled with cattle collagen, equid glue, egg and unexpected seed products. The evidence stretches across 1,800 years, so variation should not surprise us. Egyptian art remained visually distinctive because generations of craftspeople adapted materials while preserving powerful traditions.
Most importantly, the research turns a microscopic paint flake into a record of agriculture, animal use, oil production, religion and skilled labor. The ancient Egyptian paint ingredients now emerging from those flakes show that an artwork can preserve far more than an image. It can preserve the decisions that made the image possible.
What do you think drew Egyptian artisans to sesame and moringa—performance, availability, sacred meaning or some combination of all three? Share your theory in the comments, then follow Chronicle of Curiosity for more discoveries hiding in plain sight.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What did ancient Egyptians put in their paint?
Egyptian artists mixed colored pigments with binders such as plant gum, animal glue, egg or wax. The new study also found sesame and moringa seed proteins in some painted objects.
How did scientists identify the paint ingredients?
Researchers used mass spectrometry-based proteomics to identify peptide sequences from surviving proteins. They combined those results with infrared spectroscopy, pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and archaeological evidence.
Did ancient Egyptians use sesame oil as paint?
The samples contained seed proteins and only traces of oil. Therefore, the researchers favor a protein-rich seed-processing byproduct, such as pressed seed cake, over pure sesame or moringa oil. The exact recipe remains unknown.
Which animals supplied Egyptian glue?
The study found cattle most often among samples with animal glue. It also identified sheep or goat, donkey, horse and possibly antelope sources. In several cases, tissue evidence pointed toward hides and connective tissues.
Why is moringa important in the discovery?
Moringa proteins had not previously been documented in ancient Egyptian artworks. The plant also had a possible cultural connection to Ptah, a god associated with craftspeople, although the proteins alone cannot prove a symbolic purpose.
Sources and Further Reading
- Clara Granzotto et al., “Beyond animal glue: Paleoproteomic analysis of paint binders and adhesives in ancient Egypt,” Science Advances, August 26, 2026.
- ProteomeXchange, PXD056094: study dataset and methods summary.
- Getty Publications, “Challenges in the Characterization and Categorization of Binding Media in Mummy Portraits”.
- Getty Publications, “Egyptian Blue in Romano-Egyptian Mummy Portraits”.
- Phys.org, plain-language report on the study and its conservation implications.