01-04-2009, 03:40 PM
Quote:Roman leather dying in Britian is a dark area for me. The Romans certainly could dye leather. Some soldiers probably had more than one belt, and it seems responsible that high status belts could be dyed or painted. I can imagine they could be shown on tombstones, as you state. May I ask which ones? However there are no finds of dyed leather from Roman Britain even though they would be easy to identify. Leather coloured with wax and pigment would be harder to identify. I'm happy with painting leather, but have not considered how a Roman would have aproached it.
Dyed leather has been discussed on RAT before. But I fear I can reach no definite conclusions about it.
Hi John, I took notes during that lecture, and I should manage to locate them. Give me some time and I'll get to it
Dyeing leather red is indeed a bit of an enigma. I have some medieval recipes about dyeing leather with madder but it seems quite hard and it will take a long time to do.
