Elnaggar, A.; Leona,
M.; Nevin, A.; and Heywood, A., “The Characterization of Vegetable
Tannins and Colouring Agents in Ancient Egyptian Leather from the Collection of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art”, Archaeometry 59 (2017) 133–147.
doi:10.1111/arcm.12239
(Wiley Online Library, free access)
Abstract:
This work
characterizes both tanning and colouring materials found in ancient Egyptian
leather objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The analytical
investigations focused on assessing the development of the technology of
ancient tanners using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC),
surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier
transform infrared spectroscopy (FT–IR), X-ray radiography and a scanning
electron microscope connected to an energy-dispersive X-ray detector (SEM–EDX).
Reference leather samples and archaeological leather objects were investigated
to identify the animal skin species and the early use of hydrolyzable vegetable
tannins for leather tanning. Different methods were used to colour th leather,
including madder dying and staining with hematite, or painting with Egyptian
blue and Egyptian green.
