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E. Torgan, R. Karadag, L. Puchinger:
"Dyestuff, tal and technical analyses of some historical silk objects from Topkapi Palace Museum";
Talk: 31st Meeting of Dyes in History and Archaeology, Antwerp (Belgium); 10-18-2012 - 10-20-2012; in: "DHA 31, Programme and abstract Book", (2012), 27.

This study encompasses more than one hundred historic, richly decorative Ottoman textile samples made in coloured silk, which was wrapped with a gold or silver thread, and stemming from the famous Topkapi Pallace Museum Collection. To characterize the metallic covered textile fibres and to get some information on the techniques in former times the following methods were used: HPLC-DAD (High performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection) was applied for the identification of dyestuffs and dyeing components of these ancient objects (Table 1). Before HPLC-usage all samples had to be extracted with a 37% HCl/methanol/water (2:1:1, v/v/v) solution. The most important dyes analyzed were cochineal, oak, weld, woad, dyer´s greenwood, Anatolian buckthorn and Rumex.
By means of both, FESEM-EDAX (Field emission scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersion spectroscopy) and SEM-EDX (Scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalysis), the morphology of the silk (four fibre states: unharmed, frayed out, bent and broken) as well as the elemental composition of the metal threads including the contaminations found upon it were investigated. Metal mixtures in weight percent characteristic for the surface of the threads were: Ag/Cu (36/32, 38/18 0r 9/69), Cu (75), Cu/Zn (55/27) and Ag/Cu/Au (41/6/42). Also other elements like Na, Ca, Mg, Cl, S, C and O could be found. Moreover the coordinates of the L*, a*, b* colour space of all historical objects were measured with Gretag Macbeth SpectroEye spectrophotometer.

Dyestuff, Topkapi, Ottoman, HPLC/DAD, SEM/EDX, silk