Lapis lazuli (blue pigment)

Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Sar-i Sang mines[1] and in other mines in the Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan as early as the 7th millennium BC,[2] Lapis beads have been found at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania.[3] It was used for the eyebrows on the funeral mask of King Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC).[4]