Aperçus sur l’art de la teinture en Égypte romaine : analyses de colorants des textiles des praesidia du désert oriental

The archaeological sites of Maximianon, Krokodilô and Didymoi are small Roman fortresses (praesidia) situated in the Eastern Desert of Egypt on the caravan roads leading from Koptos on the Nile valley to the harbours of Myos Hormos and Berenike, respectively. The huge rubbish heaps that have been found next to these forts have yielded hundreds of textile fragments and even parts of worn out garments, nearly all made of wool. The study of these remains is bringing important information on textile production in the antique world during the three first centuries of the Christian era. In this paper we discuss two discoveries resulting from a first series of dye-analyses of this corpus : the identification of true sea-shell purple in the weft yarns of the clavi decorating three fragments of tunics, the purple dye being mixed with kermes in two of these instances ; a second important contribution of these analyses to the history of dyeing is to show that dyers were systematically using two clearly distinct types of madder dye according to the range of colours they wanted to obtain, either orange-reds and pinks, and blacks, or violet, mauve and purple tones.