Page 42 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

textiles 1819

The Chinese loom from the early
thirteenth century used for weaving
intricate and delicate designs with silk.

ian and Mesopotamian sites. A number of classical writ-
ers described a plant on which “wool” grew and
explained that gardeners chose cotton plants because
they have blossoms of two different colors, depending on
their maturity. Cotton grows in a variety of colors and is
easier to dye than flax. Indian dyers perfected the art of
coloring cotton. Beginning earlier than 2000 BCE, they
made dyes that were colorfast by using mordants, metal-
lic salts that minimize the fading of dyes by light or laun-
Syrian, Byzantine, and Persian textiles. Far Eastern dering.Textile workers in other early civilizations shared
weavers also produced tapestry and figured weaves, but the knowledge of mordants, most often using iron and
they used different fibers. aluminum salts.
Spinners in Tibet and China spun fibers from the
stems of hemp plants. People also cultivated hemp Dyes
(Cannabis) in Europe, but whether they used it for A significant trade of dyestuffs occurred along the Great
cordage or narcotic smoke is undetermined. Wild silk- Silk Road and many other Old World routes. Coloring
worm grew many places in Europe and Asia, but the wool, silk, and cotton yarns and fabrics made them
moths cut through the cocoons damaging the fine fila- more valuable economically. Dyers played a major role in
ments they had spun and leaving very short fibers that textile production, although they and their dye pots often
made yarn construction difficult. In the production of cul- had to exist on the fringes of settlements because the fer-
tivated silk from Bombyx mori moths, the Chinese killed mentation required for plant dyes as well as the use of
the moths before they could harm the filaments in the urine and dung in the dyeing and printing processes gave
cocoons. They unwound many yards of filament from off unpleasant odors. Early plant dyes included madder
undamaged cocoons. Raising silkworms and their food —orange-red to purple, depending on the mordant;
source, mulberry leaves, is a very labor-intensive enter- indigo—blue; safflower—red or yellow; saffron—yellow;
prise; the process is called sericulture. and weld—yellow. Like mulberry trees left from futile
The trade of colorful, patterned silk fabrics expanded efforts at sericulture, madder and indigo plants, once a
westward by the late fifth century BCE, and trade routes valuable commodity, now grow wild in many places.
developed into the renowned Great Silk Road.The Chi- Two animal dyes that produced vibrant reds came
nese traded their silk fabrics but not their production from a Mediterranean sea snail and a female shield louse
secrets, although by the sixth century CE weavers in the that grew on trees. The Minoans of Crete probably per-
Byzantine Empire were producing Bombyx mori silk tex- fected and certainly distributed the production of dye
tiles that all of Europe envied. Mosaics in Ravenna, Italy, from the sea snails around the Mediterranean, although
show that lavish patterned fabrics were worn in the the Phoenicians are given credit for this dye, which is
court of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora. called Tyrian purple.The most expensive ancient dye, it is
The other natural fiber that clothed East and West, roy- the color associated with emperors and royal courts. Ker-
alty and peasant, male and female was cotton. Originat- mes, the dye from the shield louse, excelled in dyeing silk
ing in the Indus Valley by the third millennium BCE, and wool. Central and South American dyers also used
cotton is the seed-hair fiber of a bush or tree (Gossypium). two similar dyes. They perfected the process of dyeing
Like they did with silk, traders took cotton fabrics west- with the color from a small sac in sea snails and from a
ward, and archaeologists have found examples at Egypt- louse that lives on cactus plants. The latter, cochineal,