Painting with Blood: Ritual, the Body, and the Chemistry of the Huashan Rock Art
A 2026 chemical analysis of the Zuojiang Huashan cliff paintings in Guangxi, China, has identified their red pigment's binder as blood-induced calcium carbonate, likely made with postpartum blood. The finding explains a 2,000-year survival puzzle, and it lands on top of a subfield with a long history of getting blood-on-stone claims wrong.