This may have coincided with the use of a purple dye and sea silk for imitation gold threads. Loom weights provide some of this evidence some of the weights found are much lighter than normal ones, suggesting they were used for a finer fabric, woven on a smaller scale. The papers that deal with the archaeological evidence ( Houby-Nielsen Kremer Meo Soriga & Carannante) in the main take the approach that a wider range of evidence must be considered that may in conjunction with the shell mounds indicate that a textile preparation or dying industry was taking place. To extract the dye from the molluscs the shell needed to be crushed, so mounds of crushed, rather than whole, shells are often taken as evidence for purple dye production. However, molluscs of these types were also collected as a food source, and the fan mussel as a source of mother-of-pearl.

The archaeological evidence for both sea silk and purple dye production is mainly the mounds of discarded mollusc shells that can be found at several sites around the Mediterranean. One interesting short article ( Pes & Pes) introduces the reader to the skills required for the preparation of sea silk for weaving by modern practitioners the process is delicate and lengthy, which adds to the value of the material.įinds of actual textiles made of sea silk or dyed purple are extremely rare. It continued to be produced through to modern times, until 1992 when it was placed under the protection of the EU Habitat Directive. The natural colour is a greenish brown, transformed into a golden brown by cleaning and treating with lemon juice. An adult mussel can produce 2–3g of the fibres, which is reduced by about 80% during processing. Sea silk fibres are harvested from the mussel Pinna nobilis, which attaches itself to the seabed using these fibres. Sea silk and purple dye were both difficult to obtain and considered valuable and prestigious in antiquity. The volume brings together several different approaches including archaeology, experimentation, scientific analysis, and terminology. Sixteen papers are presented, the first half focussing on sea silk, and the second half on purple dye. This volume presents the proceedings of a conference held in Lecce, Italy, in 2013, on the subject of two sea “treasures”: the beard fibres of the fan mussel, used to weave small scale textiles known as sea silk, and purple dye extracted from the hypobranchial glands of certain molluscs.

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