a brief history
indigo blue
indigo extraction
indigo plants
indigo dyeing
dyeing yellow
yellow dyes
dyeing red
red roots
red insects
dyeing green
bark browns
dyeing black
soap and soda
alum, iron, dung
Sources - Quellen
most early cultures developed some form of textile dyeing utilizing the plant and mineral resources from their environments. these arts represent thousands of years of experamentation, a rich cultural heratage. after little more than a century of scientific 'development' the replacement of traditional dyes with synthetic dyestuffs is almost universal. Some of the coloring techniques of the ancient world still survive in remote villages, from the Middle east thru to the Pacific and north to Mongolia as well as in Central- and South America but many of these ancient traditions in natural science are at risk of being lost forever.
in china even before the Neolithic there existed highly developed textile industries. From as early as 3300 b.c. survive dyed textiles and written accounts of dyeing and textile production. ancient chinese techniques are believed to have traveled to the early Indus River Valley and SE-Asia, where textile dyeing had its own primitive beginnings. The abundance of a great variety of raw minerals and dyestuffs on the Indian Subcontinent plus an inquisitive and highly motivated culture of experamentation influenced the development of very advanced dye technology. Innovations in printing, patterning and dyeing spread rapidly from India Westwards. Many records of the Mesopotamian civilisations, clay tablets engraved in cuneform script dating from 2700 V. Zt. to the last centuries of the first millenium bc, describe textile -production and -arts in great detail. The use of mineral salts as fixatives and complex indigo dyeing procedures were well known. scraps of dyed cloths colored with indigo and Madder over 5000 years old have been found in the tombs of ancient Eqypt. the use of woad as a blue dye became widespread a thousand years before the time of the Romans. Complicated Egyptian printing techniques with multiple mordants and Madder red producing polychromatic designs are reported to us directly by Plinius.
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The discovery and experimentation with natural dyes took place not only in the East. Archaeological excavations in Austria, Italy and Swiss have revealed seeds of cultivated flax, Reseda luteola (Weld) and other native dyeplants as well as linen textile scraps woven in many colors, dating from between 3400 to 2800 b.c. attest to equally early European origins. Spectacular burial finds in the Nordic lands from 2800 years past reveal the widespread use of native plants for dyeing, including the blue of Isatis and even Madder, which must have been traded northwards from Mediterrannean lands. |
in the americas, some of the oldest dyed textiles found in the extremely dry high-altitude deserts of Peru and Chile date to 2000-3000 bc. these were woven and knoted with feathers, human hairs, alpaca wools and native cottons colored with indigo, cochineal, and Relbunium, a form of Madder. these textiles include the world's oldest surviving example of ikat resist-dyeing, a special form of patterning, a poncho some 4000 years old. while the ancient civilizations of the Amerikas may not seem to have been as technologically advanced as those in the Far East, the early Americans possessed highly developed artistic talents, not the least of which was fiber-dyeing. many of the basic techniques of using mineral fixatives, of indigo dyeing and toning the finished colors with acids and alkalis, block printing and the weaving of complex designs were independently developed by these cultures long before their conquest by the Europeans.
