Natural Dyes

The first dyed fabrics
When the humans first created clothes made from linseed and cotton, the need for dyeing was absent. All the garments were
used in their natural colour, which was something close to pale grey or white. After centuries of using these textiles, when
the first civilisations were flourishing in the Middle East, in Egypt and in Asia, they needed to distinguish the gender and
class became more pronounced and so the first natural dyes were created. Scientists even found evidence about the first
natural reds and oranges in tombs back to 2600BC.
An important manuscript of the Hellenistic period showing the exact importance of the dyeing industry in the ancient world
is the so-called Stockholm Papyrus. It contains over a hundred recipes for manufacturing dyes and how to apply them to
textiles. It is an important source, as it follows the development of the dyeing industry from the Hellenistic to Roman times.
Natural dyes are dyes or colorants which are derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural
dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources like roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood and other biological sources
such as fungi.
What were natural dyes made of?
Archaeologists who have studied the earliest surviving coloured fabrics and important ancient manuscripts have concluded
that there were three types of natural dyes: vegetable or plant dyes, mineral dyes and insect or animal dyes.
Mineral dyes
Mineral dyes came from minerals found on the earth’s surface and in mines. Hematite for red, limonite for yellow and
lazurite for blue were used to provide the necessary colours for textiles. By scratching the rock’s surface, a powder was
created, which after solving with water or oil, was ready to use. As they were inorganic in nature, and didn’t degrade over
time like plant or animal dyes, they can survive for years if sheltered.
Animal dyes
Another type of natural dyes came from animals – such as insects, lichens and shellfish. The most well-known insects that
have been used during the ancient times were kermes and cochineal, which produced scarlet and crimson red accordingly.
They reds that were extracted were so renowned that even now we use the same names to describe these shades.
Vegetable dyes
Vegetable dyes are made from leaves, bark or roots from trees and plants. They were the most used in antiquity as they were
the easiest to find and develop. The most common dyes were made of madder for red, saffron and safflower for yellow and
indigo for blue and blueish purple. Items dyed in indigo were considered luxurious, as they were hard to find
Lichens were an important source of natural dye for the natives of North America, because they produced yellow dye by
boiling lichens in water. Another type of dye from lichens (orchil dye) was also known to ancient Greeks and Romans, who
used it in the place of the more expensive Tyrian purple. When comparing the two though, the orchil purple dye was not as
colourfast as the Tyrian purple, and the end result was not as bright as the much coveted Tyrian purple.
Expensive dye in the world
The most well-known shellfish dye was the Tyrian purple, royal purple or imperial purple as it was called, which came from
sea snails in the Eastern Mediterranean in the ancient city of Tyre. This dye was very special for all the civilisations around
the Mediterranean and its use spanned whole centuries. It was the most expensive dye in the whole of ancient world, as the
colour it produced was very bright and colourfast. Because of its properties, its use was restricted for royals, members of the
royal family, and senior public officers and priests.
Natural dyes in antiquity and modern times
The dyes that were used for garments were proportionate to the wealth or importance of the people. Wealthy people were
wearing brightly hued colours, while the lower class was wearing clothes in the shades of white or brown. The slaves’
clothes were dyed in greys, greens and browns. Either way, dyed garments were expensive and a matter of exclusivity,
across the whole ancient world.

Natural Dyes

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Natural Dyes

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The first dyed fabrics

What were natural dyes made of?

Expensive dye in the world

Natural dyes in antiquity and modern times

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