Endrei Walter szerk.: Textilipari Múzeum Évkönyve 8. 1995 (Budapest, 1995)

dr. Márta Járó: Manufacturing technique of gold threads and their imitations on museum textiles - chronology of the preparation of metal threads. Results of the scientific investigations

The flat strips made of gold or gold alloy can be considered, according to our present knowledge, as the most ancient metal thread type. The first description of strips cut from gold foil, i.e. from gold hammered to a thin foil used as metal thread is the already mentioned passage of the Bible [1]. The earliest metal thread sample of this type which was analyzed with scientific methods is most likely the flat strip coming from the royal graves of Vegina in Greece, dated from the 4th century B.C. The fabric woven with gold thread, from which this sample was taken, was found in the grave of Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great. The reconstructed piece of textile is 28.5 x 41-61.5 cm [21]. The metal strip made of nearly pure gold is cca. 0.3 mm in width and it has a thickness of 0.03-0.04 mm [22]. Not having investigation data yet, we have to rely on excavation reports and historical sources for determining the time when the flat strip has been replaced by its cylindrical-variety, which was much more easy to handle. This was a strip cut from gold foil wrapped around a fibrous core. In the description of the archeological findings of Kerch, Crimean peninsula (dated to the 3rd century B.C.) for instance, "finely twisted" gold threads are mentioned which had originally a core, which disappeared by the time of the excavation [23]. Plinius attributes the invention of weaving with gold (or the working in of gold into a textile) to the Asian king Attalus: "Aurum intexere in eadem Asia invenit Attalus rex, unde nomen Attalias" [42]. Attalus, king of Pergamon (in case when the person in question was the founder of the dynasty) lived in the 3rd century B.C. It is not inconceivable that these two pieces of data give approximately the time of the appearance of the new thread type. Precise time data for the coming in use of the metal threads made of gold strip wrapped around a fibrous core could be given only on the basis of investigation data of reliably dated samples. A finding in France dated to the lst-2nd century A.D. [25] and some metal threads among the findings of the excavation in Palmyra [26] are already of this morphological type. From the 2-4th centuries a number of textile fragments are known made with such gold threads [27]. These prove that Romans had already decorated their garments with this cylindrical metal threads in the centuries A.D. Unwinding some of the metal threads (found in Alsóhetény, dated back to the 4th century) - i.e. unrolling the gold strip from the remains of the silk core - I found that the longest gold strip was only 75 mm long. On about 5 mm long section, the strips were wound on each other, i.e. the short segments were joined this way, probably in course of the winding up procedure.