ERLANGEN, GERMANY—According to a statement released by the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, a team of scientists experimented with treating and dyeing wool in an attempt to reproduce the vivid colors of the Pazyryk carpet, a 2,400-year-old knotted-pile textile discovered in a kurgan tomb in the Altai Mountains in 1947. Karl Meßlinger and Manfred Bieber and their colleagues examined pieces of the Pazyryk carpet with high-resolution X-ray fluorescence microscopy. Although most of the cuticle layers of the ancient carpet’s wool fibers are missing, the analysis revealed that the color had penetrated to their inner structure. The researchers were able to reproduce this effect by fermenting modern wool before dyeing it. Anatolian craftspeople produce the same change in the wool’s outer cuticle today by spreading a fleece in a field in direct sunlight for several weeks, then using it as animal bedding, and finally rinsing it in a stream or river. After this treatment, dye penetrates the cuticle to the wool’s inner structure and resembles the brilliantly colored fibers of the Pazyryk carpet. To read about tattooed mummies interred in the Altai Mountains by the Pazyryk culture, go to "Ancient Tattoos: Iron Age Mummy."
