Abstract
Kaitag textiles, named after the Kaitag district of Southwest Daghestan, Russia, where it is being manufactured, are a unique embroidered textile art form. They were used by families on special occasions such as the birth, marriage or death of one of their members and were thus passed down from generation to generation as family heirlooms. Today, only a few hundred of these precious antique specimens can still be found, and surviving examples are mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this article, an extensive work for the scientific analysis of Kaitag textiles is presented as the logical continuance and updating of the investigations performed by thin layer chromatography almost two decades ago. A multi-technique approach involving the combined use of micro-invasive and nondestructive techniques suitable for in situ analyses was used, aiming to identify the colourants of Kaitag textiles and the inks employed for the underlying drawing. Analyses were performed by high-performance liquid chromatography, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, as well as visible reflectance spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence. In addition, infrared reflectography and ultraviolet fluorescence were employed to visualise underlying drawings and possible restorations. Corrosion phenomena observed in brown- and black-dyed areas were also investigated.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Mr. Moshe Tabibnia for inspiring this study and giving the authors the opportunity to access his own collection of Kaitag textiles, Dr. Tiziana Marchesi for her enthusiastic and competent support during non-invasive measurements and for her patient work in collecting samples for laboratory analyses and Dr. Hae Young Lee for her revision of the manuscript’s English language.
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Pozzi, F., Poldi, G., Bruni, S. et al. Multi-technique characterization of dyes in ancient Kaitag textiles from Caucasus. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 4, 185–197 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-012-0092-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-012-0092-5