Krasivanova Twig

And in those early civilisations, and indeed through to the modern day,

It served practical, spiritual and aesthetic purposes and also medicinal.

So it protected the eyes from the glare of the sun.

It treated the eyes of infections and various other medicinal ailments.

And it also symbolized a divine protection.

So it protected against the evil eye.

It's very important to note that kahl is actually quite distinct from modern eyeliner in that it is crafted from natural materials.

Western eyeliner, as we know it, is highly processed.

In ancient Egypt, it would have been something like ground antimony.

Then in other parts of the global south, you would see different formulations.

So they may have used things like

roasted date pits.

One of the most interesting formulations was the bile from the gallbladder of a hyena.

I think the common denominator here is that it's a process of grinding, filtering, and storing the powder itself.

So I think there's a lot of craftsmanship that goes into it

Still to come on this podcast...

Why it's bad news for salmon when dolphins and orcas join forces.

I'm Krasivanova Twig from the Global Jigsaw podcast from the BBC, where we are talking Persian poetry in politics.

With its abundance of lovers and wine, Persian poetry sits uneasily with Iran's theocratic rulers.

If you're not familiar with the AI video generation tool Sora, it lets you put in a text prompt for pretty much any 10 second video clip that you can imagine.