- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Indigo dyed headdress made from loosely woven cotton, hemmed along the longer lengths and fringed at the shorter ends. [AFS [OPS move] 6/8/2019]
- Date
- Date collected
- 1989
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 03/03/2016
- Materials and processes
- Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Pigment, Process Woven, Process Dyed
- Dimensions
- Width: max 416 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2018.37.111 Other numbers: SY4
- Research and responses
In Indigo in the Arab World by Jenny Balfour-Paul, Curzon Press, 1997 p 137, Balfou-Paul mentions the practise of wearing a length of indigo cloth around the head and shoulders, as a frequent practice by women in south Yemen, noting that it could also be drawn over the nose and mouth when modesty was required. [AFS [OPS move] 6/8/2019]
Jenny Balfour-Paul discusses the making of indigo dye in Beihan in Indigo in the Arab World. Unlike most dyers in the 1980s who had converted to the synthetic dye, those at Beihan were still using natural indigo (the locally harvested indigofera argentea). Balfour-Paul states that in 1989 the dyers manufactured their own dye to meet demand, roughly once a month. Ref: Balfour-Paul, J., 1997. Indigo in the Arab World. Richmond: Curzon. [Joanna Cole 25/11/2022]
- 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, Clothing Textile, Clothing Headgear, Headdress