Stockholm & Leyden Papyri Dye Recreation Project

I am currently coordinating a major collaborative project to endeavour to recreate as many as possible of the dye methods in the Stockholm and Leyden Papyri - the world’s oldest surviving written record of the craft of dyeing. The papyri date from 4th century Roman occupied Egypt.

I launched a call for participants in the Spring of 2021. Recreating these methods is something I’ve wanted to do for many years, and I decided that many hands could make much lighter work of the task!

We are 24 natural dyers, on many continents, participating in this endeavour. It’s a very large undertaking. Not only are there a great many methods to explore (81 in total), but they are also often thin on details, and often include measures and ingredients that are difficult for a modern dyer to interpret or access. But those challenges are part of the attraction of this project, and the inspiring cumulative knowledge and enthusiasm of our team is up to the task!

The links above include details on our research and results, which will include a virtual exhibit of finished fibre works using papyri dye methods. On the Blog page, you can sign up to be notified when new posts are published. Collaborators are taking turns publishing posts documenting fascinating early research and tests, and we are averaging a new blog post every few weeks.

Our hope is to discover which of these methods are reproducible in modern times and give good results (including fastness), and to provide insights for modern dyers - borne of our research and testing - that will allow these historically significant methods to once again become part of everyday usage.