Indigo has a powerful hold on the imagination - as evidenced by the traditional picture of Ancient Britons coloured blue with woad indigo - but, until now, the actual application of the dye and possible explanations underlying the practice have rarely been considered. The dyestuff is equally fascinating to the scientist, to Adolf von Baeyer in the 19th century, or to the modern chemist using modern instrumental methods for its characterisation. Indigoid dyes are not the only blues and purples, however, lichen dyes have an equally long history and their inconspicuous sources, found in many, often inhospitable, habitats, are no less intriguing, if difficult to categorise. Perhaps the most humble colouring matter is mud, but this, too, has a biological aspect to its use.
These and other naturally occuring organic colouring matters were among the subjects for discussion at the 18th Meeting of Dyes in History and Archaeology, held in Brussels in 1999. The textiles and other artefacts coloured with the dyes are no less interesting and varied. Romanian and Polish textiles and, as the cover illustrates, Japanese ukiyo-e prints are only examples of the possible uses discussed in this book.
Editorial
Contributors
Woad, tattooing, and archaeology of rebellion in Britain
Gilly Carr
Adolf von Baeyer and the indigo molecule
Christopher J. Cooksey and Alan T. Dronsfield
NMR Spectroscopy of leucoindigotins and formation of deuterated indigotins
Gundula Voss
The etymology and botany of some European lichen dyes
Karen Diadick Casselman
Botanical alternatives to alum
G.W. Taylor
The right mud: studies in mud-tannic dyeing in west China and west Surrey
Deryn O'Connor and Ann Richards
Traditional Maori dyes
Rangi Te Kanawa, Scott Thomsen, Gerald Smith, lan Miller, Claude Andary and Dominique Cardon
Colour in modem Polish tapestry
Katarzyna Schmidt-Przewozna
Analysis of natural dyes from Romanian 19th- and 20th-century ethnographical textiles by DAD-HPLC
Irina Petroviciu and Jan Wouters
Photo-oxidation products of quercetin and morin as markers for the characterisation of natural flavonoid yellow dyes in ancient textiles
Ester S.B. Ferreira, Anita Quye, Hamish McNab and Alison N. Hulme
Non-destructive analysis of ukiyo-e, traditional Japanese woodblock prints, using a portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometer
Yasuko Noda and Susumu Shimoyama
The classification of coloured organic materials in painting and applied arts on the basis of natural dyes
Valeri Golikov
The use of coloured organic materials based on natural dyestuffs in Russian icon painting of the 15th-19th centuries
Valeri Golikov and Zoe Zharikova
Reviews
It is the rare scientific journal of which one wants or is able to read the whole. With this one, one almost can, and the contributions often inform and support one another.
Studies in Conservation 47(4) (2002) 280