| Abstrakt: |
Abstract:Many civilizations have left behind evidence of wonderful textiles exhibiting advanced weaving techniques and a variety of colors. It has been the task of textile historians, weavers, technologists, and chemists to investigate the extant finds. For ancient Phrygian textiles of the ninth–eighth centuries bce, this approach has been upended. The colorants in the largest royal burial at Gordion, Tumulus MM (for “Midas Mound”), were biologically disassociated from the textiles they once colored, which had degraded inside the tomb. Some years earlier, a fire had engulfed the City Mound at Gordion, carbonizing the textile remains, which survive only in shades of gray. Little was preserved of the beautiful textiles for which the Phrygians had been famous.New instrumental analyses have revealed a fuller picture of the Gordion textiles, answering many questions about their original colors and fabrics. While Tumulus MM produced inorganic yellow ochre (goethite) as the source for the “dye” used for the golden-hued cloth from the tomb, the remaining dye palette was largely organic: orange, reds, and purple achieved with madder and mordant/auxiliaries, and indigo with goethite for green. A structure on the City Mound yielded charred textile fragments featuring geometric patterns, recalling the inlaid designs on the fine wooden furniture from Tumulus MM. An adjacent group of workshops contained loom weights, spindle whorls, knives, and needles, indicating large-scale textile production at the site. Taken together, this new evidence provides unparalleled insight into the all-but-lost Phrygian textile industry and the sophisticated design sense and complex technical skills of the makers. |
