One of the first things our collaboration team did was to compile a series of reference materials to help us better understand the historical context of 3rd to 4th century Roman-occupied Egypt (when and where the papyri were written), and to enable us to review previous investigations of the papyri dye methods.
core reference:
The original papyri were written in Greek, which became a commonly used language in Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 BC. Though Egyptian and Latin were also commonly used languages in the 3rd to 4th century AD, Greek was most commonly used for writing at that time. In 1885, a translation from Greek to Latin was published. Over the next several decades, some summaries of the papyri were translated into various European languages. Finally, in 1926-7, Professor Earle Radcliffe Caley (a professor of analytical chemistry) published a series of complete English translations in the Journal of Chemical Education. For our project, we relied heavily on Professor’s Caley’s complete translation of the papyri, as well as on our own investigation of related academic studies of terminology, and of historically accurate materials and methods.
dyes:
A multispectral imaging approach integrated into the study of Late Antique textiles from Egypt by Joanne Dyer , Diego Tamburini, Elisabeth R. O’Connell, Anna Harrison
Martinez Garcia, Julia, M & Armero, M.. (2013). Κόμαρι: SOME HYPOTHESES ON AN ENIGMATIC DYESTUFF DESCRIBED IN CERTAIN RECIPES OF GREEK ALCHEMICAL PAPYRI, e-PS, 2013, 10, 90-98.. e- Preservation Science (e-PS). 10. 90-98.
Karapanagiotis, Ioannis (Yiannis) & Verhecken-Lammens, Chris & Kamaterou, P.. (2019). Identification of dyes in Egyptian textiles of the first millennium ad from the collection Fill-Trevisiol. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. 11. 10.1007/s12520-018-0705-8.
Faber, G A. (1938). Ciba 9: Dyeing and Tanning in Classical Antiquity.
Tamburini, Diego, Dyer, Joanne, et. al. (2019). Compositional and Micro-Morphological Characterisation of Red Colourants in Archaeological Textiles from Pharaonic Egypt. Molecules 2019, 24(20), 3761.
Laberge, Michelle. (2018). The Heart of the Madder: an important prehistoric pigment and its botanical and cultural roots. UWM Digital Commons.
Various participant samples from this collaboration
historical context:
Forbes, R J. (1965). Studies in Ancient Technology, Volume I. Brill Archive.
Nicholson, Paul T. , Shaw, Ian. (2000). Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge University Press.
Lahanas, Michael. Ancient Greek Measurements - Length, Weight, Time.
Giner, Carmen Alfaro, Garcia, Jónatan Ortiz, Garcia, M. Julia Martínez (Eds.), Valencia. (2013). Luxury and Dress Political Power and Appearance in the Roman Empire and its Provinces.
Bogensperger, Ines. (2017). Alum in Ancient Egypt: the written evidence.
BLOG:
In addition, some of us published blog posts during the collaboration that form part of the legacy library of our work.