How old is the grass?
Which of the following (ceramic pot, silk thread, glass, cake, or wheel) has the oldest archaeological record?
The ceramic vessel, or fired pottery, is the oldest, dating from 6500 BC. Surprisingly, pastel comes in second, well before wheel, silk, or glass; Mankind stored pastel grass seeds in the Stone Age, possibly as early as 7,000 years ago. Blue-colored flax or hemp fragments found trapped in an implement at a cave site at Adaouste in southern France date to Neolithic times, while inhabitants of other Neolithic sites stored grass seeds. The other items on the list are all from the Late Bronze Age, with the first wheel for transportation invented around 3200 BC. C. in Egypt, the first silk discovered around 2700 a. C. in China and newly invented glass around 1500 BC. C. in Phoenicia.
If you’ve ever tried to extract woad pigment from woad leaves, you’ll know that it’s a complex process that requires an alkaline environment, the correct temperature, and the removal of oxygen. At first glance, it seems almost impossible that someone stumbled upon this technique by chance.
Despite its complexity, most cultures around the world have independently discovered how to dye fibers blue using plants from different families. Indigo, for example, comes from the bean family and is used in Asia and Central America; in Africa they use Lonchocarpus, another member of the bean family. In India they are dyed with a type of oleander and in Sumatra a milkweed is used; Japanese indigo is related to rhubarb, while European and Chinese woad belong to the cabbage family.
How did people discover how to dye with woad?
Probably from direct observation and possibly from noticing that when the blades were accidentally pressed against his clothing, the clothing turned a faint blue. Some of these leaves may have medicinal properties and may have been used crushed in poultices under bandages. Another is that Neolithic man or animals from him ate cake sheets in times of famine and the possibility of saliva mixed with the chewed cake coming into contact with clothing would cause the fibers to turn slightly blue.
Over the centuries, the process evolved into intentionally pressing shredded grass blades against the fibers. The leaves have to be fresh to be used for direct dyeing, therefore blue-producing plants would likely have been grown by increasing numbers of people. This happened to the cake that slowly spread to Europe from its native origin in the Mediterranean (Turkey and the Middle East).
blue textile dyeing
Linen and hemp, the main fibers available in the Neolithic, are not as easy to dye as wool. A further complication is that direct dyeing is a slow method that would have allowed only a limited amount of fiber to be dyed. Color, therefore, would have been used sparingly and mainly on the edge of the fabrics. In fact, blue borders were found on some of the cloth used to wrap mummies in ancient Egypt around 2500 BC. C., although colored borders apparently were not in common use until 300 BC. c.
All the chemicals needed for dyeing were readily available. Ammonia, in the form of rancid urine, was often used for cleaning because soap was not invented until the first century AD. Rancid urine is alkaline, and the bacteria that live in it remove oxygen from the liquid. A bunch of wort leaves collected near houses for direct dyeing would sooner or later fall into a urine barrel in the summer and the next cloth cleaned in the barrel would come out pale blue. Anyone who has witnessed this would have been very impressed.
In time, wool became available and a better process for dyeing with woad was developed, making it easy to dye enough fiber to weave entire garments. A girl in a blue dress, most likely dyed with woad, was found in an Iron Age (circa 1st century AD) tomb in Denmark.
wood and ceramic
The wood was not used just for dyeing; the abundant blackgrass seeds are shaped like tongues with a crest in the middle and with a tiny tail, which make a beautiful impression in the clay. These seeds were used to decorate pottery in Iron Age settlements in Germany.
wooden tubs
Urine vats, also called sig vats, are still used today for historical re-enactments or as an easy and inexpensive way to dye pastels. Most dry cleaners today, however, don’t have the patience to wait two weeks for a vat of urine to work, nor are they prepared to put up with the smell of stale urine. If you want to dye with woad, the easiest and fastest way is to prepare a chemical vat, using soda ash to alkalize the vat and spectralite to remove oxygen.
Whichever method you choose, ancient or modern woad tub, you will find it very exciting to get the same blues as the Stone Age man. And if you want to go a step further, you can grow woad and then extract your own precious blue pigment.