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Terrazzo hints for Monday, September 14, 2026
Mosaic № 38. Three hints, from a gentle nudge to the full answer. Open only as many as you need.
Hint 1: what kind of picture is it?
Today's subject comes from art.
The caption reads: “For centuries, the most expensive colour on earth.”
Hint 2: the Laws, in plain words
You place 7 stones into a frame of 33 cells. Every cell is filled exactly once.
- Kinship. Same-coloured stones that touch make a region. Today: gold forms 3 separate regions of 9, 3, 1; lapis blue forms one region of 1; moss green forms one region of 12; terracotta forms 2 separate regions of 5, 2.
Start with the largest region the Laws name: it has the fewest ways to fit.
The answer: what the mosaic shows
Ultramarine
True ultramarine comes from lapis lazuli, and for most of its history lapis came from one place: the Sar-e-Sang mines in the Hindu Kush. Ground stone alone yields a disappointing grey-blue; the pure pigment must be coaxed out by kneading the powder in wax and lye for days. The result cost more than gold by weight. Contracts of the Renaissance specified how much ultramarine a painter would use and who paid for it, which is why the Virgin's robe is so often blue — the colour was the commission's most expensive material. In 1826 a chemist synthesised it for a prize. The price collapsed within a decade.