The most luxurious fabrics were wool and silk. Wool was dyed various colors, but purple predominated. Purple was derived from excretions produced by the glands of a Mediterranean mollusk, the murex snail. Each snail produces only a few drops of these precious secretions, so to obtain a dye, thousands of them had to be boiled in water. The purple dye was added to the wool and allowed to boil in the open air for nine days, producing an abominable smell. The purple wool used for the clothing found at Palmyra came from Tyre and Sidon.
The other fabric was silk, which was imported from China. It was natural for silk to be found in Palmyra, situated on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean. The fragments of clothing discovered in the tombs show that the silk was of very high quality and often beautifully embroidered. Certain embroidered patterns seem to echo the decorative motifs used on the architectural sculpture that embellished the tombs.
Text: adapted from Michel Fortin (translated by Jane Macaulay) p. 264-265.
Photo: ʿĀbid īsā.
Collection of the National Museum of Damascus.
Michel Fortin, Syria, Land of Civilization. Les Éditions de l'Homme, Musée de la Civilisation de Québec 1999.
ʿĀbid īsā. A Guide to the National Museum of Damascus 2006.
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