![]() ![]() ![]() Probably the next type of dye to appear, around 2500 b.c., was indigo. ![]() The oldest known garment colored with madder is an item of red linen from the tomb of Egypt's "boy king" Tutankhamen (d. This is a plant that grows in northern Africa and southwestern Asia, and which contains in its roots coloring that varies from a pinkish to a brownish red. (Chinese sources on the subject are even older), and the coloring agent mentioned was madder. ![]() The first Near Eastern reference to dyes comes from c. 5000 b.c., and in the centuries that followed, the peoples of the region began using wool and other animal fibers. Flax, hemp, rush, palm, and papyrus all became material for clothing in the Near East during the period from c. So too did textiles, the first examples of which-found in the Judean desert-date to the seventh millennium b.c. Today virtually all clothing dye comes from synthetic sources, but this is very much a latter-day development prior to the mid-nineteenth century, all fabric coloring came from nature. The latter was the color of a natural dye developed by the Phoenicians, who became so closely associated with it that their name reflected the fact. As for the name Phoenicia, it comes from the Greek Phoinike, which shares roots with the word phoenix-a term that to the ancient Greeks connoted blood-red or purple. Though the Phoenicians were among the most influential peoples of ancient times, becoming merchants and explorers who settled the western Mediterranean and beyond, there was-strictly speaking-no such place as "Phoenicia." Rather, the homeland of the Phoenicians was a coastal strip centered on what is today Lebanon, a chain of city-states dominated by Tyre and Sidon. The Development of Dyes by the "Purple People," the Phoenicians Overview ![]()
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