ART HISTORY AND HERITAGE
THE MAKING OF THE LACE
THE
MAKING OF THE ARMENIAN LACE: THE FOUR REQUIREMENTS
To a make a lace, one
needs the following:
A-
THE FIRST REQUIREMENT: Certain ingredients extracted from
plants, vegetables, wood, insects, fruits skin, worms and minerals to make
the dye.
B-
THE SECOND REQUIREMENT: Raw materials such as cotton,
wool, flax, hemp and silk for threads.
C-
THE THIRD REQUIREMENT: Wooden or preferably metallic tools
such as shuttles, thimbles, needles and knives for spinning threads, doubling
and constructing the web.
D-
THE FOURTH REQUIREMENT: Wood for hoops, looms, stretchers
and frames. Armenia’s soil and dense forests rich with oak trees and walnut
trees produced a superb wood quality
perfect for manufacturing durable looms, strong rods, wheels for spinning the
threads and fibers. The Armenian wood was most suitable for framing and
web construction. It was frequently used to build various
tools, materiel and instruments needed in other fields of industry and
production and particularly in artisanat areas such as textiles, fabrics,
carpet and rug weaving.
THE DYE
THE
ORIGIN
OF
THE
DYE
WHO
DISCOVERED IT FIRST? WHO USED IT FIRST? ARMENIANS OR TURKS?
Khoren,
a 5th century Armenian historian,
mentioned the Gallnuts as the main dye ingredient. Arab
noted travelers and geographers like Ibn Battuta referred to a
cochineal dye, a red color pigment (Armenian Vortan Garmir) which was
extracted from some indigenous insects which looked like worms. Those insects
produced a sort of a net they used as a protection shield and surrounded
themselves with.
Similar coloring process was used by the Incas and the
Mayas in Peru and Mexico to dye belts and warriors hats’
feathers and decorations. In the 9th century and maybe much much
earlier, the Phoenicians in Byblos, Na’oura, Tyre, Khalde and
Sidon extracted the Ourjawan (A Phoenician purple dye and
novelty) from sea shells. In the 3rd century A.D., the Arabs
in Syria and Iraq extracted Al Zaa’faran, a very special
dye liquid produced by worms and wild plants leaves. As always, Armenians
and Phoenicians were the Middle and the Near East
forerunners and innovative creators when it comes to art products and
decorative items discovery and production.
