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Martin scale

older version of color scale

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ25099714
Source-derived summary

The Martin scale is an older version of color scale commonly used in physical anthropology to establish more or less precisely the eye color of an individual. It was created by the anthropologist Rudolf Martin in the first half of the 20th century. Later he improved this scale with cooperation of Bruno K. Schultz, leading to the Martin-Schultz scale.

Original scale

The original Martin scale, summarized below, consists of 16 colors (from light blue to dark brown-black) that correspond to the different eye colors observed in nature due to the amount of melanin in the iris. The numbering is reversed in order to match the Martin–Schultz scale, which is still used in biological anthropology. In this case, the higher the number, the lighter the eye color.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Martin scale” is older version of color scale. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Martin, scale and older, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 126-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Martin, scale and older is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “older version of color scale” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25099714. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Martin scale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.