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2018.37.29

Length of cotton cloth, indigo dyed and polished on one side. Cloth is deep indigo in colour, one side is burnished and shiny. Otherwise undecorated. [AF [EFCF project] 11/6/2018]

2018.37.29

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Collection type
Object
Description
Length of cotton cloth, indigo dyed and polished on one side. Cloth is deep indigo in colour, one side is burnished and shiny. Otherwise undecorated. [AF [EFCF project] 11/6/2018]
Geographical reference
Oman
Asia > Western Asia > Oman
Date / Period
Date made: 1985
Date collected
Purchased March 1985
Acquisition information
Donated: 03/03/2016
Materials and processes
Material Cotton Textile Plant, Material Pigment, Process Woven, Process Dyed, Process Polished
Dimensions
Length x Width 895 x 280 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 2018.37.29 Other numbers: O2
Research and responses

More on indigo production and dyeing in Oman can be found in Indigo in textiles of the Arab World by Jenny Balfour-Paul, Curzon Press, 1997, esp. pp. 65-69, 139 - 141. [AF [EFCF project] 11/6/2018]

Jenny Balfour-Paul describes the indigo dyeing industry at Bahla in 'Indigo in the Arab World'. She notes that in 1985 two lone farms maintained the traditional supply of indigo dye for the last dyers at Ibri and Bahla. In Bahla, this was Amir Salim Salim al-Shamani, in whose dyeshop the earthenware vats (khar) were embedded into the floor. Once cloth had been dyed in indigo it was hung to dry on the workshop roof. In the mid 1990s, Amir Salim Salim al-Shamani was still working in the centre of the old suq in Bahla. Balfour-Paul, J., 1997. Indigo in the Arab World. Richmond: Curzon, p.67; 78; 97-8. [JMC 02/11/2020]

For a series of photographs of the dyer Amir Salim Salim al-Shamani taken by Jenny Balfour-Paul in 1985, see 2018.137.1136-.1143 and 2018.137.1972-.1993 [JMC 13/05/2025]

Associated publications
Balfour-Paul, Jenny, Indigo in the Arab World, Routledge, 1997 [AF [EFCF project] 23/8/2019] Balfour-Paul, Jenny, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans by , British Museum Press, 1998 [AF [EFCF project] 23/8/2019]

Search terms: Textile, Dye

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