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Henna as a textile dye in 450 BCE?
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Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on October 26, 1999 at 18:13:28:
Messing about with Herodotus.... (484-425 BCE) ...he mentions in Clio, #203, that in the Caucasus there are trees (Henna gets 10 feet tall, sometimes taller) whose leaves, when pounded and mixed with water, are used by the inhabitants to make a dye, that they use to paint their clothing. They paint figures of animals and these painted figures never wash out but last as long as the garment does. I know of exactly ONE leaf that will do that.....and that's henna! (The location as is described is Northern Iraq .... I don't know if the climate was having a warm spell then (I think it was) or if there was a more cool-tolerant species of henna there....or what, but I really don't know of any other dye that you can apply as a smashed - leaf paste like that, with complete wash-fastness) I have the sudden urge to make up a series of patterns of these animal figures from the Caucasus ..... the ones I've found are mostly horned animals, birds and such .... very cool patterns for cloth OR skin ... email me if that strikes your fancy....
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