The European Textile Forum in 2023 took place in Mayen, Germany, in the Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology (part of the Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology), November 6 to November 12.
Focus topic for this year's conference was "Dimensions of Dyeing: Colours, Mordants, Processes."
Colours played an important part in historical textiles. Bright colours did not only show off wealth, they could also have symbolic meanings. Dyeing processes can range from very simple, with little knowledge and effort needed, to very complex, just as the dyestuff can be very cheap - such as leaves or walnut husks - to extremely expensive, such as Murex snails for true purple. At the Forum in 2023, we want to look at the many dimensions of dyes, dyeing processes, and the use of colour in textiles - including special cases such as the re-use of coloured textiles to make painting pigments, or the use of paints to colour textiles. Mordants and their role in dyeing should, of course, not be forgotten.
Contributions to the Forum programme were:
Micky Schoelzke, France: In Pursuit of Fake Purple
workshop, ongoing throughout the week
Shellfish purple was and still is one of the most difficult to obtain and expensive natural dyes. Known from a very early period in human history, shellfish purple has also been faked early on (according to dyestuff analysis of textiles and also some ancient written sources).
Fake purple was often dyed by a double dye process with madder roots for red and a blue dye like woad. The purpose of this hands-on ongoing workshop at the forum is to investigate what shades of red and blue have to be dyed to obtain certain shades of purple that could imitate the « real stuff ».
Experiments at the 2022 Forum showed us that the main challenge is to dye the right shade of madder red, so this year will be about the many shades of madder and testing additional ways of mordanting prior to the dye process. We will be using madder roots for the red dye component, and dyeing will also be done over an open fire.
Beatrix Nutz, Austria: Knitting UFOs - The Phantom of the Viking Lucet.
presentation, workshop
In cases where storage conditions do not favour the preservation of organic material and thus of textiles, tools can indicate the textiles produced. However, it is not always easy to determine the function of such tools. Hence, many an excavated object is jokingly referred to as an UFO (Unidentified Find Object) by archaeologists. Also not of the extraterrestrial kind, a knitting or crochet UFO (UnFinished Object) is usually a work in progress that has been temporarily or permanently abandoned or neglected. These are projects that are semi-finished - comparable to archaeological UFOs, which have often been puzzled over for years or even decades - in the case of the alleged Viking lucets at least since the 1960s - without ever reaching a (final) conclusion.
The so-called lucets or knitting forks, bone implements, with two prongs or tines, mainly dated to the 10th to 12th century, are said to have been used to knit long cords (much like with modern knitting dolls). Based on a find from Lund (Skåne County, Sweden) on which a runic inscription is engraved on one side, these UFOs are addressed as "tinblbein" in Scandinavia. English speakers refer to them as Viking lucets. BUT – a closer look at find spots reveal that these bone tools can be found in areas where Vikings never ventured too (e.g. Switzerland and South Tyrol – some dated as early as the 5th century). One was even found in Sankt Johann, only 4 km northwest of Mayen. In the Netherlands and Belgium, similar bone artefacts with three and four prongs have been found. The most common are the three-pronged implements called "drietand" (trident). The three- and four-pronged objects are also considered UFOs and there is speculation as to whether they were used as bridges of stringed instruments, tools for decorating ceramics, for piercing rows of holes in leather etc.
To find out whether these devices are at all suitable for knitting cords, some replicas were made and knitting experiments conducted. It turned out that knitting with these tools works quite well, despite their small size. Nevertheless, the question still stands: Were these UFOs used as knitting forks/lucets or not?
This talk aims to give an overview of the “lucet” finds in Europe, present the results of the knitting experiments, and discuss the likeliness of other possible uses of these implements. Afterwards, there will be the opportunity for participants to try knitting with the replicas.
Janet Levy, Israel: Experiencing colour in the southern Levant from Qafzeh Cave, 100,000 years ago, to the Cave of the Warrior, 3700 BCE.
presentation
Humans are attracted by bright colours, particularly red. Archaeological evidence for the use of red ochre, an earth pigment, as a body cosmetic is attested from 100,000 years ago. (Also controlled low heating to convert orangey-yellow ochre to intense red).Widespread ethnographic parallels were observed from 17th-20th centuries Australia and to a lesser degree from sub-Saharan 20th century Africa.
Non-local, green stone beads sourced to 200kms to the east appear at 11,000 BCE. Green and red inorganic pigments, sourced 150 kms to the south, were impressed into linen yarn tassel components of a fabric repertoire from a cultic cave dated 8200-7500 BCE. A black-brown organic dye was identified on weft threads of patterned terminal bands and outer warp threads of a linen shroud from the Cave of the Warrior in the Judean Desert. This is the oldest examples of dyed yarn, not coloured or stained, in the Old World.
The earliest pictorial evidence of dyed and patterned cloth, undoubtedly wool, appears on the tomb wall of Khnemhotep an Egyptian provincial governor of the early 2nd millennium BCE as clothing worn by a group of Semitic craftsmen-traders from the Levant bearing green eye cosmetics.
In the southern Levant green is associated with incipient agriculture and blue particularly in the Mesopotamian sphere with initial urbanization.
Jane Malcolm-Davies, Denmark: Scarlet, crimson and red: investigating different dyestuffs for early modern headwear.
workshop
Recent dye analysis of knitted caps thought to be early modern has revealed that cochineal, madder and kermes were used. There are several extant recipes for dyeing knitted caps from the 16th century which confirm the use of madder and kermes (‘grain’). Recipes for cochineal are not so specific. The dyestuff itself is only one of many variables in historical dyeing recipes. The local water, mordants to fix the colour, additives to ‘charge’ (brighten) the colour and potentially challenging ingredients such as arsenic, gum were all recommended together with kitchen stuff including walnuts, yeast and vinegar. Testing the effectiveness of madder, kermes and cochineal with recipes published in 1548 (for wool) and 1557 (for silk) for reconstructed knitted caps requires simplified recipes to ensure credible results. This workshop will identify the essential ingredients for each dye and consider the effects of water from different localities on the outcomes.
Florian Saum, Germany: Under the Loom: Update on the Warp-Weighted Looms in Lauresham.
presentation
Katrin Kania, Germany: How Many Horsetails?
workshop
Equisetum arvense, the field horsetail or common horsetail, is a plant containing some aluminum. There is a theory in research that aluminum-rich plants were used as mordanting agents instead of mineral alum, which may not have been widely available throughout the earlier Middle Ages especially. However, mineral content of these plants is commonly relatively low, and to achieve an aluminum concentration similar to the modern-common one of around 10-25% of dry wool weight, immense amounts of plant would be needed. A recent test (https://exarc.net/issue-2021-4/at/before-they-dyed) used 125 g of plant on 5 g of fibre, which would mean that 25 kg of plant would be necessary for a single kilogram of fibre. Even with a plant that is widely available, the sheer bulk of material that needs to be processed with these ratios would be a challenge for a production process.
The workshop aims to look at the use of Equisetum as a mordanting agent, using different amounts of the plant to evaluate its use and efficacy compared to mineral alum.
Roisin Hurley, Ireland: Early Medieval use of dog whelks for purple dye in Ireland.
presentation
My talk will be an outline of a proposed research paper into the Early Medieval production/utilisation of dog whelk molluscs for dye / ink production in Ireland.It includes a brief outline of some early research/ experiments from 27 yrs ago.While studying EM monastic sites I noticed a reference to midden deposits of crushed dog whelk shells in a historic excavation report and a mention of their use in dyeing. I was intrigued by this having some basic knowledge of the use of murex species in the Mediterranean and related species up to current days in Mexico.I did some small ad hoc experiments without much planning and obtained a dye sample using my scanty knowledge of the processes used in Classical Roman era (Pliny) and an account from modern Mexico. My intention is to repeat and expand on the experiment and to see if other sites can be located to ascertain if this was a widespread practice/industry. New survey work of the islands containing the original site and way more published available work on the subject of shell fish dyes means that I hope to get more input, oversight and funding to expand my research.