Encaustic paintings

The use of the various tempera and of wax has been identified on objects dating back to ancient Egypt. The Eayum mummy portraits are beautiful examples of encaustic painting, ie, using molten wax as medium. A rather special variation was the technique used by the Romans for wall paintings. In these, the medium, referred to by Pliny as Punic wax, probably consisted of partially saponified wax. In Europe, wax ceased to be used by the ninth century. 

Mattera, J. (2000), The Art of Encaustic Painting, Watson Guptill, New York. 

What was the composition of the encaustic paints used in early Christian paintings ... 

The ancient Egyptians were adept at creating water paints, which were used to decorate the interiors of their pyramids, temples, and palaces. Much like the cave painters paints, their colors were earth tones—yellow ochre, sienna, red, black, and white—but two new colors were added blue and green. Later, between A.D. 117 and 161, the early Christians in Egypt made paints of pigment particles suspended in hot beeswax. Their works, called encaustic paintings, are still well preserved and brilliant in color. In the eighth century, the Phoenicians obtained a vibrant purple dye from a particular kind of oyster. 

Artists colors n. Various paint media used by artists, such as oil paints, watercolors, gouache, tempera, encaustic, fresco, silicate esters, and latex. 

Encaustic in- k6-stik [encaustic, adj, ff. L encausticus, fr. Gk enkaustikos, ff. enkaiein to burn in, fr. en- + kaiein to burn] (1601) n. (1) Painted with a mixture of a paint solution and wax, which, after application, is set by heat. (2) Colors, which have been applied to brick, glass, porcelain, and tile and set by the application of heat. 

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