gems, color science

The sources for understanding the earliest color terms and categories are from the lands to the east and south of the Mediterranean Sea. Evidence of color categories from proto-cuneiform, Sumerian, Egyptian, and Akkadian in Mesopotamia and Egypt (from the end of the fourth millennium BC onwards) is followed (during the second millennium) by Greek in the West and Chinese in the East. Linguistic terms relating to color are present in all these languages.