Output details
15 - General Engineering
Manchester Metropolitan University
Identification of purple dye from molluscs on an excavated textile by non-destructive analytical techniques
Understanding how our ancestors produced items of outstanding beauty is of the great public interest and importance. The difficulty in analysing the artefacts lies in the need for their preservation; they must not be damaged during analysis. For the first time, using a set of non-destructive analytical techniques, we have proof that the textiles at the time of Alexander the Great were dyed using pigments extracted from molluscs. We compared different dyes and materials and have used the expertise of our international colleagues from Athens on fabrics to prove the exact colouring techniques used by our ancestors.